Karen Hale (born June 24, 1958) is an American politician from

Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

. She represented Utah's 7th senate district in the

Utah State Senate The Utah State Senate is the upper house of the Utah State Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Utah. The Utah Senate is composed of 29 elected members representing an equal number of senate districts. Each senate district is ...

from 1998 to 2006, and was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 2000 and 2004.

Education, career, civic and personal

Hale is a graduate of the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

with a B.S. in Mass Communication. She was publisher and editor of "Parent Express," a magazine for Utah families. She was Statewide Education Chair for Earth Day Utah in 1990. In 1997, she was Public Relations Chair for the Sugarhouse Sesquicentennial Celebration. She has served on community boards, including the Envision Utah Steering Committee, the Utah Film Center and KUED. She serves as a Trustee of

Intermountain Healthcare Intermountain Healthcare is a not-for-profit healthcare system and is the largest healthcare provider in the Intermountain West of the United States. Intermountain Healthcare provides ambulatory and acute health services, along with other medi ...

, Inc., and she has served on Intermountain's

Primary Children's Medical Center Intermountain Primary Children's Hospital (PCH) (formerly Primary Children's Medical Center) is a nationally ranked pediatric acute care children's teaching hospital located in Salt Lake City, Utah. The hospital has 289 pediatric beds and is aff ...

Board of Trustees since 2008 - she was named the chair in 2010. She and her husband Jon are the parents of five children and have nine grandchildren.

Political career

Hale won her 1998 run for Utah State Senate district 7 with 50.28% of the vote. She was the Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor in 2000, and again in

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

. She won her 2002 re-election bid to the state senate with 66.61% of the vote. During her two terms in the Utah State Senate, she was a member of the Transportation and Public Safety Committee, the Senate Education Standing Committee, and the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee, as well as Minority Caucus Manager. In 2005 she served as Assistant Minority Whip. Hale is a co-founder of the Coalition for Quality Public Education (COPE), a nonpartisan group working for education funding in Utah. In 2007, the Utah Democratic Party gave Hale the Eleanor Roosevelt Award. Hale served as a Director of Communications in the office of Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker. While there, she was Vice Chair of the Utah Coalition for Civic, Character & Service Learning. When Becker's term ended in 2016, Hale went to work for Salt Lake County Mayor

Ben McAdams Benjamin Michael McAdams (born December 5, 1974) is an American politician and attorney who served as the U.S. representative from Utah's 4th congressional district from 2019 to 2021. He was the only Democratic member of Utah's congressional del ...

, as Deputy Mayor of Community and External Affairs."Salt Lake County hires former city public services chief to run townships," The Salt Lake Tribune, April 7, 2016
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hale, Karen Living people 21st-century American legislators Politicians from Salt Lake City Democratic Party Utah state senators 1958 births