HEA 2021 election results
Following an election with the highest turnout in over a decade, first-time directors now make up a third of HEA's nine-member board.
New directors Mike Chenault, Robert Wall, and Louie Flora participated in their first board meeting on May 11, six days after election results were announced May 5.
HEA members returned 5,175 of the 24,682 ballots sent out, resulting in a roughly 21 percent turnout, according to Director of Member Relations Keriann Baker. HEA turnouts have typically been around 16 percent in recent years, with an average of 4,114 ballots returned in the elections since 2010. The previous high turnout was 5,141 in 2010.
Mike Chenault — from his HEA candidate profile.
Chenault takes the seat of termed-out incumbent David Thomas after winning a four-way election against opponents Wayne Ogle, Joseph Ross, and Erik Hendrickson. Chenault represented the north Kenai Peninsula in the state House of Representatives from 2001 to 2018, where as a member of the Republican majority he was the legislature's longest-serving Speaker for the House from 2009 to 2016. The HEA board is Chenault's first elected office since 2018, when he left the state house to run a short-lived campaign for Governor, dropping out of the race for personal reasons in June of that year.
Robert Wall — from his HEA candidate profile.
Wall, a drill rig supervisor at North Slope and Cook Inlet oilfields, also takes the seat of a termed-out incumbent, Dave Carey. He defeated opponent Ed Schmitt by 605 votes to represent HEA's District 2, which encompasses Soldotna and Sterling.
Louie Flora — from his HEA candidate profile.
Flora is a commercial fisherman, former House of Representatives committee aide, and current governmental affairs director of the Alaska Center, a civics and conservation nonprofit. He takes the District 3 seat, representing the south peninsula, after defeating single-term incumbent Roy Champagne, who took his board seat in 2018.
Here are complete results for the 2021 HEA board election:
