Paul Bauer (politician)
Paul A Bauer Jr. (born April 7, 1955) is a former Assembly Member from the Municipality of Anchorage, Alaska. A twenty-two year veteran of the U.S. Army, Commandant of the Alaska Youth Challenge Program, community volunteer and District Chairman of the Republican Party of Alaska, he served on the Anchorage Assembly as one of the most conservative members of the body from 2005-2008. He defeated 1st termer Brian Whittle, also a District Chair of the Alaska Democratic Party turning the liberal majority Assembly over to a conservative majority in 2005.
Personal life
Bauer was born in Brooklyn and raised by his father as an only child in Queens, New York. He attended both private and public schools starting at the age of 5 and graduating Newtown High School in Elmhurst, NY at in 1972 at 17 years old. After attending one semester at Queensborough Community College, he enlisted in the U.S. Army airborne forces 1973 and retired in March 1995. Bauer served the State of Alaska as the Commandant of the Alaska Youth Challenge Program from 1995-1997. He worked on his BA Political Science degree and minor in justice from 1997-2002, completing his Associates degree with an emphasis in law studies at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. Campaigning several times from 2002 and elected to the Anchorage Assembly in 2005 put an abrupt halt to finishing his BA. From January 2002, while campaigning for and serving on the Anchorage Assembly, he worked as a security business and operations manager for the Anchorage office of a national company that provides security for commercial airlines. He continues to work in an occupation that helps protect and serve the public.
Family
Bauer comes from a large family that traces its roots to a small border farming village named Schandorf (Csén) (Čemba) in the Burgenland Province of Austria near Hungary. Many relatives today still make it their home. His grandfather Michael Bauer, one of 7 children and of 5 who immigrated, came to America at 18 with his 16 year old sister Angie Bauer in 1907. His grandfather along with his Irish born grandmother, Mary Katherine Digan raised 8 children in New York working as a lab technician at the Presbyterian Hospital in the City of New York. Bauer's father Paul Sr. was the youngest of the 8 children married Delphina D'Ambrasio and 3 years later divorced raised his only son placing him in Mt. St. Joseph's Military Academy, Newburgh, NY at an early age and later public schools in New York City. After two years of joining the U.S. Army, Bauer married his junior high school friend, Deborah Amy Bohnaker from Queens, New York and raised two boys, Paul III born 1976 in Fayetteville, NC, and Christopher Michael born 1980 in West Berlin, GE. Both boys finished their schooling in their new hometown since 1990 in Anchorage, Alaska.
Military career
Bauer joined the U.S. Army in February 1973 at the age of 17 after completing one semester of college. He first served 5 years with the 82nd Airborne Division as an Infantry short-range air-defense missile man (Redeye). Being in the top in his class, he is one of a few soldiers who have fired the General Dynamics shoulder-launched missile twice. His next assignment took him to occupation duty in West Berlin in the middle of the Iron Curtain of East Germany for 4 years . There he served with a ceremonial guard unit for diplomats and dignitaries and 2 years with the Deputy Chief of Staff, Intelligence, Current Operations Branch. Duties with military intelligence in Berlin enlightened Bauer about the Communist and Socialist political-military systems of government and world affairs in general. While conducting his duties in East Berlin he faced many dangerous encounters with Soviet and East German forces, playing an integral part of the intelligence gathering and early alert effort. Bauer's other assigned duties while working in East Berlin, required him to display our presence on behalf of the United States and the U.S. Army to the East German people and military forces. Back in the United States, Bauer went on to train new recruits and serve four years at Siena College, Loudonville, NY as an instructor for the college’s ROTC unit that included Union College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) students. Bauer finished serving his career in the airborne forces with a second tour with the 82nd Airborne Division’s 1/504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, and lastly before retiring in Alaska with the 1/501st Parachute Infantry Regiment working in the intelligence operations section and as senior sergeant in two of the infantry companies.
Political career
Bauer began his interest and career in local politics by serving as a 2-term president of his community council in East Anchorage. During that time, he presided politically neutral as possible and developing and implementing one of the council’s most extensive surveys on neighborhood issues. He took a position as a Commissioner in the Public Facilities Advisory Commission under Anchorage’s Mayor George Wuerch’s administration for several years.
He later got involved in the Alaska Republican Party by helping his State Representative Ramona Barnes in two campaigns. He joined the Party’s district committee as a Treasurer, working his way up to the District Party Chairmanship for several years.
Bauer was elected to the Anchorage Assembly in 2005 in his third campaign to unseat liberal members that had a hold in his district for several years. There he confronted Democratic Mayor Mark Begich’s administration on an extraordinary increasing budget, potential ethics and conflict of interest issues, and Anchorage’s Sanctuary city status.