Lifelong Haines resident Bill Thomas was recently hired by the Dunleavy office to serve as a special assistant to the governor, representing the Southeast region of the state. He spoke to KHNS from Juneau, where he will live for most of the year.

Image courtesy of Bill Thomas

A typical morning for Bill Thomas now starts before dawn at the Driftwood Hotel. His first meeting is at 7:30 a.m. with the governor’s policy directors, so he usually skips breakfast and walks straight to his office on the third floor of the capitol building—cutting through the DMV parking lot to save time.

“My days are long, like I said, I get up at 6:30 a.m. and I think I went home about 8:00 p.m. last night,” Thomas said.

His days are long because he’s the governor’s point man for all things Southeast. That is, all communities South of Cordova. Thomas started only last week, but already has a full travel schedule. He’s en route to Ketchikan this week, with plans to be in Cordova before the end of the month.

The state’s Deputy Director of Communications, Jeff Turner, was unavailable for a recorded interview. But told KHNS that Governor Mike Dunleavy chose Thomas “because Southeast residents need someone they can reach out to who has local knowledge of the area, personal relationships with its residents, and most importantly, the ability to listen to their ideas, thoughts and concerns.”

If you ask Thomas what his priorities are, the first issue to pass his lips is the state ferry system.

“You know, everybody’s upset with the way it’s run, so they just figure, figure out how to make it work,” he said.

He says a longstanding friendship with Robert Venables, a ferry reform booster and chair of the state’s Marine Transportation Advisory Board, is useful to his role. He’s also looking forward to hearing from the governor’s AMHS reshaping group, and encouraged locals to apply for one of the three seats that will go to members of the general public.

Thomas says it feels good to be back in Juneau. It’s where he started his political career as a lobbyist in the 1990s, and served eight years in the state house of representatives from 2005 to 2013.

Thomas is also a commercial fisherman with a half century of gillnetting under his belt. But he says politics is in his blood.

“My grandmother, my auntie, were strong in politics, and I guess it just happened to be by my generation. My son Gabriel now—he’s, he’s getting the itch,” he said.

“So, it’s something you get into if you like helping people, you listen to their concerns. You take the good with the bad, you know?”

Thomas says that between fishing and playing basketball in the Gold Medal tournament he got to know most of the people in Southeast. But even if he hasn’t met you yet, he says he’s ready to hear what you have to say.