As far as titles go, Mara Kimmel cringes a bit at "first lady."
"We have to find a different name," mayor-elect Ethan Berkowitz's wife of 15 years said half-jokingly, though she acknowledged she probably couldn't get "first dudette."
Whatever her title, as Berkowitz prepares for his swearing-in as mayor on Wednesday, Kimmel can be counted in Berkowitz's circle of close advisers. A lawyer and an academic with a sharp sense of humor, Kimmel has forged a career centered on Arctic governance issues and access to justice, and Berkowitz said he relied on her experience on certain occasions in the campaign and transition process.
At Berkowitz's request, Kimmel sat in on several interviews with prospective members of the new administration, and she also appeared at town halls and some transition subcommittee meetings. Berkowitz declined to discuss the specific job interviews, saying only that Kimmel has "expertise" he wanted to draw on.
Of translating Kimmel's experience into future policy, Berkowitz said he's the one who will be mayor. But he added: "When you live with an expert and you can get advice for free, you get advice for free."
He said he expected to talk to Kimmel about day-to-day happenings in city government.
"As a family, we tend to share things a lot. That's one of the ways we stay close," Berkowitz said.
Kimmel (whose first name rhymes with "Sara") was born in New York but grew up in the Bay Area in California. When she was 10, her parents divorced, and her mom primarily raised her and her two siblings. When Kimmel was a 19-year-old student at the University of California Berkeley, she came to Alaska for a summer vacation and stayed.
She spent an undergraduate semester at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where she later received a master's degree. She lived in Fairbanks almost a decade, in a cabin without running water or electricity, and listened at public meetings as people talked about civil rights in Alaska Native communities. She said her interests in Native rights solidified when she worked on subsistence food-safety issues with villages affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
When Kimmel moved to Anchorage, with a law degree from the University of Minnesota, she first worked in a private legal practice before becoming an immigration attorney for the nonprofit Catholic Social Services. There, she worked with victims of human trafficking, domestic violence and political persecution, she said. In 2005, Kimmel co-founded the Alaska Immigration Justice Project, now called the Alaska Institute for Justice, a statewide nonprofit providing legal services to immigrants, including human trafficking victims.
Her longtime friend Laile Fairbairn, a managing member and owner of the restaurants Snow City Cafe, Spenard Roadhouse and South, described Kimmel as "extremely intelligent, really passionate about social justice." She said Kimmel and Berkowitz both like to talk issues, and Kimmel is a sounding board for big-picture policy ideas.
Another friend, University of Alaska Anchorage professor Diane Hirshberg, said people are often surprised to find out that Kimmel is married to Berkowitz. She said Kimmel has "very much kept her career independent."
"She's probably bringing new ideas home whether or not it's intentional," Hirshberg said.
Anchorage's first ladies typically take on projects -- most recently, Lynette Sullivan, the wife of Mayor Dan Sullivan and a schoolteacher, coordinated events that include the Festival of Flowers, the Bridge Builders' Unity Gala and the mayor's Charity Ball, said city spokesperson Bryce Hyslip. Before that, Deborah Bonito, wife of former Mayor Mark Begich and a businesswoman, ran a library literacy program and projects that supported military families.
Kimmel said she is potentially interested in working on the Welcoming Cities initiative that the municipality became involved in during the Sullivan administration, highlighting diversity in the community. As a senior research fellow at the Walter J. Hickel-founded Institute of the North, she's also interested in seeing Alaska flesh out its role as a member of the international Arctic community, with Anchorage as a gateway, she said.
But Kimmel said she'll be juggling those ideas with her own busy career. Her passions include teaching, and after seven years as a political science professor at UAA, she recently took on an endowment-funded position at Alaska Pacific University, where she'll be developing a curriculum focused on entrepreneurship and justice. She's finishing a 200-page doctoral dissertation on the shifting nature of Arctic governance, which she said particularly focuses on rural areas.
While Kimmel has never run for office -- "I'm not a runner-for-things," she said -- she has worked on political campaigns, including Berkowitz's runs for Congress and governor.
Berkowitz said Kimmel's convictions provide a counterweight to the transactional pressures of politics.
"She is incredibly idealistic and principled," Berkowitz said. "In a lot of ways, that's an antidote to the cynicism of politics the way I've experienced it."