Cathy Giessel was an Alaska State Senator from 2011 to 2021 and served as President of the Senate. For the past year, she has co-chaired the bi-partisan group Defend Our Constitution. She was born in the Territory of Alaska, in Fairbanks, where she was raised and graduated from Lathrop High School before moving south to Anchorage in 1974. Cathy is a Nurse Practitioner in Family Practice. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Michigan and her Master of Science degree from the University of Alaska Anchorage, both in Nursing. She is actively engaged in community service with a behavioral health board, a school-based clinic, children's programs at her church, and a foster care and health fair volunteer. She received the Anchorage Republican Woman of the Year award in 2007 and was named an exceptional leader by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing in 2010. She and her husband of 48 years, Richard, raised three kids in the home Rich built for them in 1979.
Donna Goldsmith is a retired attorney who litigated child protection, domestic violence, and federal Indian law cases throughout the United States. Donna also served as a special assistant attorney general to Attorney General Bruce Botelho and as a tribal judge. She chaired and served on several committees for the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges for 13 years, conducted training for state and tribal judges throughout the length of her career, chaired the Federal Bar Association Indian Law Section, where she received awards for her work, created and ran a cross-jurisdictional Judicial Forum for federal, state and tribal judges, and ran the Federal Bar Association Indian Law Conference for more than a decade. Donna also consulted on developing tribal courts in Canada and the United States. She is a former president of the ACLU of Alaska and is currently the president and co-chair of Alaskans for Fair Courts. Donna is an artist and a cook when she is not engaging in advocacy on behalf of her community.
Retired Judge Elaine Andrews served as a trial judge for over 20 years in Anchorage. She served as Presiding Judge of the Third Judicial District from 1996-2002. Before assuming the bench in 1981, she was an attorney in both the public and private sectors, practicing criminal and civil law. She co-chairs Alaskans for Fair Courts and is the past chair of the Committee for Fair and Impartial Courts for the Alaska Bar Association. She was the 2017 Recipient of the Jay Rabinowitz Award for Public Service. She has a grown family of five and enjoys her retreat in the Wrangell-St. Elias area with her husband of 42 years.
Cathy's slides - https://www.dropbox.com/s/tzodhc49qu6z9ch/NoOn1.pdf?dl=0