Karen Rehfeld, was appointed to sit on the Denali Commission by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Rehfeld received a BA in Political Science from the University of Idaho, Moscow in 1976. Then she served as Special Assistant to Alaska Governor Jay Hammond, and as the Executive Director for the Reapportionment Board for the 1981 reapportionment plan for state election districts. After that she was an Administrator for Elgee & Rehfeld, Certified Public Accountants, and then she was a private consultant and fiscal analyst to the offices of the governor, lieutenant governor, and various departments of state government. After that she was Administrative Services Director for the Department of Education and Early Development. In June 2003 she became Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Education & Early Development, and currently is Alaska’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget, appointed in March 2007 by Governor Palin.

 

Rehfeld comes from a political family. Her father, the late Bob Ward, was Alaska’s Commissioner of Administration, Secretary of State, Lieutenant Governor, and Commissioner of Transportation.