Mayor LaFrance bulks up her top-salary team, including new medical director from Bend, Oregon

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Dr. George Conway

Mayor Suzanne LaFrance has hired a retired epidemiologist from Oregon who has extensive experience working in China to be Anchorage’s new medical director.

Dr. George Conway retired from a similar position at Deschutes County, Oregon, where Bend is the county seat. During the Covid pandemic, the county allowed employers to require workers to receive a Covid-19 shot, with limited exceptions. Over 73% of the population of Oregon took the Covid shots, which the State of Oregon has officially deemed safe for everyone. Shot mandates were not controversial in Oregon, as they are in Alaska.

According to the Deschutes County web page dedicated to Covid information, “All of the COVID-19 vaccines being given in Oregon are safe for everyone, even if you’re pregnant. The vaccines have been tested with thousands of people around the world. Black, Indigenous, Latino/a and people of color have chosen to be part of these research studies to make sure the vaccines are safe for our communities. We know they are safe and work very well to keep people from getting sick with COVID-19.”

That would be in line with the thinking of the Anchorage Assembly, which must approve his hiring. The doctor who worked for Mayor Dave Bronson took a different approach to mandates and masks.

“Mandates are a political action,” Savitt told reporters, referring to Covid shot mandates. “That’s not something that will be a recommendation coming from us.” His hiring was widely criticized by the news media and was highly politicized by Democrats. Savitt so angered Democrats in Anchorage that it led to a ballot question to voters this year, who approved the Assembly now having the power to approve or disapprove the hiring of every medical director.

Conway will likely receive a pass from the Alaska news media and Democrats in Anchorage.

His biographical summary at the Oregon State Legislature says he has worked in Alaska, the Arctic, and in other extreme environments, and is known for his work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He has “extensive international experience in designing, implementing and managing successful health programs to address public health threats,” his bio states. He also teaches at Oregon State University.

From 2012 through 2015, Conway was assigned by C.D.C. to serve as Senior Advisor to the Chinese Centers for Disease Control as well as Public Health Attaché for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing where he provided assistance in environmental health and occupational health and safety to the U.S. mission in China, including supporting the mission’s effort to address severe air pollution conditions impacting the U.S. Embassy workers.

As health director for Deschutes County, in addition to leading over 300 county-employed public health and behavioral health specialists, Conway advised the residents and governments during episodes of heavy wildfire smoke, providing guidance and recommendations during numerous local town hall meetings to community members and local businesses.

Conway is a past president of the International Union for Circumpolar Health. He has expertise in dealing with multiple public health issues including HIV/AIDS as well as health, safety, and environment in the fishing, agriculture, aviation, and oil and gas industries; and his work on air pollution and other environmental hazards includes over 100 scientific articles, monographs, and book chapters and is often cited. He has been a keynote speaker at many international conferences.

Conway holds a medical degree from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, and a masters of public health from the University of South Carolina. He is board-certified in general preventive medicine and public health.

His appointment is subject to confirmation by the Anchorage Assembly. There is no mention as to whether he is going to move to Anchorage or work remotely from Bend, but Anchorage city workers are largely working from their homes these days, and so Conway will likely travel back and forth from Oregon.

The Anchorage medical officer for Mayor Dave Bronson was paid $143,936 a year for his services, but the amount paid to Conway has not been announced yet.

Other appointments to top-tier positions in the Anchorage Municipality include positions that have been paid over $140,000 a year in the past:

  • Chief Fiscal Officer Philippe Brice has served the Municipality of Anchorage as the acting Information Technology Director since May 2023, after being named Deputy Director in 2021. He worked as the Chief Financial Officer for several private-sector businesses and has a degree and a professional background in accounting.
    Purchasing Director Chris Hunter has been acting director since July 2024. He has been at the municipality more than nine years, serving as deputy director since 2021 after over 30 years working for ConocoPhillips Alaska.
    Information Technology Director Sioux-z Humphrey Marshall returns to her 2018-2021 role, when she adapted the city for pandemic remote work, and migrated the organization off of the mainframe systems.
    Internal Auditor Alden Thern has been serving as Chief Fiscal Officer since May 2023. He was Municipal Projects Director from 2019-2023 and Deputy Municipal Manager from 2015-2019.
  • Planning Department Director Mélisa Babb is a land-use planner and licensed landscape architect with site design and project management experience across Alaska. Babb replaces Planning Director Craig Lyon, who has announced that he will retire in 2024.
    Project Management & Engineering (PM&E) Director Melinda Kohlhaas is a professional civil engineer with over 30 years of experience. Kohlhaas has worked at PM&E for the last 16 years, including as its acting director, and has been with the municipality since 2005.  
    Public Works Director Kent Kohlhase has worked for the municipality since 2013. He served as Private Development Manager in the Development Services Department and Engineering Design Manager for PM&E, as well as the department’s director. He worked as acting Building Official and Director of Development Services as well as Municipal Manager from December 2022-July 2024.
    Health Department Director Kim Rash began her career in Section 8/Housing Choice as a receptionist before her promotion to manager, then spent over nine years assisting individuals with SNAP and Medicaid benefits at Arapahoe County Department of Human Services.

26 COMMENTS

    • As a leftist, LaFrance will talk all about jobs! Making jobs, increasing salaries, etc… but when they are actually elected, they will put a DEI hire in place, or hire a friend, or import someone.
      After all they are spending your money.

    • …and for a position that’s not necessary. No Alaskan is going to accept a health mandate from a city employee, ever.

  1. Go farther back and look at bio’s. All is probably not what the current administration wants you to believe on the new hires. Too bad we don’t have qualified people in the State to fill these positions?

    • “Too bad we don’t have qualified people in the State to fill these positions?”

      That’s a good thing if by qualified the MOA means a person at the crossroads of multiple intersectionality identities and a proclivity towards raging Marxist lunacy.

    • Take a lesson from Palmer’s former city manager. Only on the job for a little over a month and forced to resign. Brought his crazy ideas from out of state with him and they didn’t fly here. Also, it seems that no one vetted him as his past work history was available on line to anyone who cared to look. Lesson, hire from within after grooming a replacement for positions. A good manager always has someone in mind to replace them.

  2. so what exactly is wrong with this guy? He enforced non controversial policies. The guy seems over qualified for the job. I would wonder why he would even want to get involved in the maelstrom of Anchorage politics. Since salaries were brought up in this article. Why nothing here when Bronson handed Jared Goecker a $173,000 a year package for a job he had no experience at.

  3. Well, Well, Well … (!!!) Another bureaucrat with China ties, now implanted within our city Gov’t and being paid with our tax dollars, probably just waiting to devise – advise of the next extreme totalitarian measures to be exercised against the general populace.
    When the SHTF, the types are the first that will need to be flushed out.

  4. Anything now or in the future implemented by the Assembly or this Mayor will be ceremoniously ignored by me and anyone who is stupid enough to get in my face will be dealt with at that time.

    • You may be correct in your perspective. Bill Gates and others have talked about the next pandemic in terms of “disease X,” and in ominous forecasts of “not if, but only when” it will strike. Disease X terminology just tells me they haven’t decided which new virus will be chosen.
      I would have bet a pile of money that “disease X” was going to be Marburg virus or Haunta virus (two truly vicious bugs), but it looks like I was wrong.
      Bird flu is shaping up to be the likely candidate now, with Monkeypox as a distant second choice. I say that because both have mildly effective vaccines in play, or in the pipeline for development.
      The last thing Anchorage needs is an ignorant, overpaid, Communist Party- and CDC-brainwashed jerk parroting the party line, and installing useless measures again, that were proven ineffective last time.
      If we really want uninformed, idiotic advice, it seems we could get it for a lot less money that this fool is going to be paid.

      • Dont even mention the Monkey Pox virus around here….that could wipe out the better half of the Assembly…. (:

  5. More overhead to further impoverish the property owner with unwieldy property taxes. This administration will be more damaging to Anchorage than the Biden administration has been to the USA.

  6. The current flock of democrats and rino (republican in name only) politicians have declared war on we the people.

    Jobs go to outsiders who are funded m
    By people like george soros.
    Just what alaska needs, to become california or oregon.
    Next thing we know, anchorage city hall will be a sanctuary building, housing homeless nefarious crooks (other than the politicians and her minions).

  7. Why does Anchorage even need a medical director? As to Bend, Oregon being so heavily enamored of the clot shot, the simple explanation is that most of Bend has been infested with transplants from California in recent years and they brought all the brainwashing that goes along with that! It appears that the good Doctor Conway got out while the getting was still good.

  8. “As of May 2024, there were a total of 974 active specialty physicians in Alaska.”
    (‘https://www.statista.com/statistics/209433/number-of-active-physicians-in-alaska-by-specialty-area/)
    .
    Yet, none were qualified for the job, or wanted the job?
    .
    Here’s another public-health “professional” unburdened by patient caseload, overflowing with “advice”, especially about air pollution, real or imagined.
    .
    Only a hardened cynic would ask out loud what’s coming next, is this one just another municipal hood ornament, hired to lend gravitas to upcoming lockdowns, vaccine, and mask mandates?
    .
    Good news is that expecting nothing good from the LaFrance regime means never being disappointed, no?

  9. Another bureaucrat pushing the Satan Sauce on the less informed. Guess he never studied Revelations 18:23. And for those who haven’t, don’t forget to change the last word as written in the KJV to its original Greek . . Pharmakeia. It will make more sense

  10. Get ready to bend over if you are a muni servant when they engineer another Wuhan special. More “completely safe” shots coming your way if you are loyal to the monarchy.

    The expert scientific scientist who had lots of obedient guinea pigs to practice with in Orygone will make nothing compared to the loot Chris Constant gave the tranny baggage thief Sam Briton to write the muni policy requirements for gender confused children.
    Chris must have had help from Hillary in destroying all the public documents used in his correspondence with his boyfriend.
    Money well spent voters!

  11. “Black, Indigenous, Latino/a and people of color have chosen to be part of these research studies to make sure the vaccines are safe for our communities.” The Bill Gates method.

  12. Another Dr. who advises pregnant women and children to get a KILL SHOT to prevent disease? That was always a NO when pregnant. A long time policy for all medical Drs to follow, up until c19. These are produced by the Dept of Defense. Outside good manufacturing practices. Phizer, J&J, Etc are the venders. ALL part of the depopulation. Read it from Sasha Latypova on Substack or the book by Edward Dowd, former Wall St Manager, “Cause Unknown” The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths”.

    PS this Dr spent much time in China just like Walz the Wolf running for VP. And he was trained in China. Its time to kick Commies out of the USA. They are all traitors

  13. Oregon was fond of required masks and mandatory vaccinations. No shot, no service including going into many places of businesses.

    It went thru because Oregon is full of sheep and not all of them graze in fields. It will be interesting to see whether this guy becomes an Alaskan (in name only) to avoid Oregon income taxes.

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