Kelly Tshibaka

Born and raised in Alaska, Kelly Tshibaka has spent her career exposing fraud and abuse in government and served as Commissioner of Administration for Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy from January 2019 until she stepped down to run for the Senate. Tshibaka’s father was a union electrician and Vietnam War veteran, and her mother was one of the first workers at the startup of Prudhoe Bay, one of Alaska's large oil fields. Her parents were homeless for a time in the 1970s but fought their way into the middle class. Tshibaka graduated from Stellar Secondary School in Anchorage and was the first in her family to pursue a college degree, beginning her studies at the University of Alaska Anchorage before graduating from college and law school. Prior to serving in Alaska government, she saved American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in her work in offices of the inspector general for several federal agencies, including for two years in the Trump Administration. She lives in Anchorage with her husband, Niki, and their five children.