Les Gara Announces Exploratory Committee to Consider Running for Governor

Today Former Rep. Les Gara announced he would form an exploratory committee to consider replacing Mike Dunleavy as Governor.

"I want a state that provides real opportunity for people, that creates jobs and that offers students and workers the skills and quality education they deserve. We should help people succeed because it's right, because it will help end our recession, and because it will grow our businesses with Alaska workers," Gara said in a press release earlier today.

Gara was a legislator from 2003-2019, and moved to Alaska in 1988 with his wife Kelly, a highly regarded hospital physical therapist. He worked in Fairbanks as a Supreme Court Law Clerk for Justice Jay Rabinowitz, and in 1989 began his legal career as an Alaska Assistant Attorney General to prosecute the civil lawsuit against Exxon following the catastrophic 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.

Since leaving the Legislature, Gara has worked on projects to help children and youth succeed at Big Brothers Big Sisters and Covenant House of Alaska. In addition, he has continued to write freelance magazine articles on Alaska fishing and tourism.

On Twitter this afternoon, in response to a tweet asking Gara to "run now," Gara wrote that he hadn't yet made a "firm decision" about running nor what kind of husband he would be campaigning for a year if he decided to run.