DUNLEAVY BRAIN TRUST ADDS SEN. STEVENS
Ben Stevens, a former state senator and son of the late Sen. Ted Stevens, has been appointed to a senior policy group inside the Governor’s Office.
The mission: Help get the state back on track.
He’ll be joining John Moller and Brett Huber on a team that will help create and implement the direction for the Mike Dunleavy Administration. Their work will be to support the Dunleavy goals of strengthening the economy and restoring greater public safety.
Stevens said he was surprised by the call to serve in the new administration. He had not worked on the Dunleavy campaign and at one point had even been sought by his friends and politically active Republicans to run for governor. Ultimately he weighed the decision and chose not to run.
Stevens chose not to run for office in 2006, and shortly thereafter a federal and state investigations started against him. He was pursued relentlessly by prosecutors, persecuted by a corrupt system that operated with impunity.
After seven years of investigations, there was never an indictable offense, because prosecutors had used media allegations and allegations from Democrats, rather than facts, to try to establish Stevens’ guilt in a wide-ranging investigation that involved former lawmakers and business leaders from the Veco Corporation.
Stevens always maintained his innocence but the toxic and partisan probe destroyed his political career. He has kept a low political profile, raising a family and working in the private sector. His father, U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, was brought down also by false allegations from the U.S. Justice Department and then narrowly lost to Mark Begich in 2008. Ted Stevens died in a plane crash on Aug. 9, 2010.
Ben Stevens has been working at Cook Inlet Tug and Barge for many years, and will start with the Dunleavy Administration on Monday.
Stevens graduated from the Arizona State University with a B.A. in economics and earned his Master of Business Administration degree from the George Washington University. He is known by friends and colleagues to be one of the smartest and most capable people in Alaska.
After college, he was a commercial fisherman and owner of a consulting firm. Stevens was president of the May 2001 Special Olympics World Winter Games, held in Anchorage.
In 2001, he was appointed by Gov. Tony Knowles to the Alaska State Senate, after being nominated by the Republican Party of Alaska.
He served as Senate majority leader for 2003-2004, and Senate president in 2005-2006. He decided to not seek re-election in 2006, when he let the June filing deadline pass without taking action. He is also a former member of the Republican National Committee.
