Longtime advocate for the homeless Kim Kovol is joining the Governor’s Office as a special assistant on issues of homelessness and domestic violence statewide.
Kovol was deputy director of Bean’s Cafe, an Anchorage soup kitchen. In her new role, she will lead efforts to address homelessness with an emphasis on Alaska’s urban centers, and coordinate education and programs dealing with reducing domestic violence, one of the governor’s top priorities.
Rex Rock Jr. has also joined the governor’s team as a special assistant for both rural outreach and economic development with Alaska Native corporations.
Rock, who is in the insurance business, is on the board of directors of the Tikigaq Corporation, a village corporation created through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, representing the Inupiat people around Point Hope, 330 miles southwest of Barrow. He serves on the North Pacific Research Board and is a whale hunter and son of Rex Rock Sr., who is the president of Arctic Slope Regional Corp.
Rock will also work on a variety of state and federal tribal issues on behalf of the State of Alaska.
Sources in the Dunleavy Administration said that now that communities are opening up across Alaska after the worst of the pandemic, it was the right time to bring on the two subject experts to work on issues requiring outreach to communities. Kovol and Rock start work on Monday.
