50 Years of Service
Special thanks to artist Brett Uher for designing our anniversary logo!
The Alaska Legislature created the Office of the Ombudsman in 1975. Governor Jay Hammond signed the bill into law on April 14, 1975.
There have been 6 people appointed to serve as Ombudsman:
- Frank Flavin (1975-1981)
- Jack Chenowith (1981-1986)
- Duncan Fowler (1988-1994)
- Stuart Hall (1994-1997)
- Linda Lord-Jenkins (2002-2017)
- J. Kate Burkhart (2017-present)
Over the past 50 years, our work has informed the adoption of a code of ethics for public officials, predator control efforts, the health and social services background check program, improvements at the DMV and in the child protection system. We have investigated complaints about the public assistance and child support divisions, state farming programs, the clemency process, veterans' land sales, mariculture programs, prisoner abuse, and the state psychiatric hospital.
Reports through the years highlight the work of the Ombudsman for Alaskans.
The Ombudsman has received hundreds of thousands of requests for help since 1975.
We provided ombudsman services in the 1980s to the local governments of Wrangell, Ketchikan, Juneau, and Palmer. We had offices in Juneau, Anchorage, and Fairbanks for many years. The Fairbanks office closed in 1995 after the ombudsman budget was reduced by over 50% in the 1990s.
We now receive between 1,600-2,400 requests for help each year.