Al Gross explores a run for U.S. Senate

Commercial fisherman and practicing orthopedic surgeon Al Gross, of Anchorage, has launched a statewide tour to listen to Alaskans’ concerns as he considers a 2020 run for the U.S. Senate, the potential candidate announced on May 14.

A lifelong Alaskan, born and raised in Juneau, and a registered non-partisan, Gross said he intended to travel from Ketchikan to Utqiagvik to hear from Alaskans on issues that matter most to them.

“As a fisherman, I have met so many hard-working Alaskans across the state, but as a doctor, I’ve seen that hard work isn’t enough when the people in charge aren’t looking out for everyday Alaskans,” Gross said. “Six years ago, I looked around, and I saw that Alaska’s health care system wasn’t healing people – it was bankrupting them.”

Gross said after practicing medicine in Southeast Alaska for 20 years, while raising four kids with his wife, Monica, he left a successful practice in Juneau “to go back to school and learn the tools I needed to help fix it.”

Gross said he finds that today his fellow Alaskans are just as worried as he is about health care and the state’s economy, schools, climate change and children themselves.

“It’s time to find new tools, get to work, and build solutions,” he said.

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Gross is the son of the late Avrum Gross, who served as the state’s attorney general under Gov. Jay Hammond from 1974 to 1980.

More about Gross and an up to date list of Alaska communities he will be visiting is online at algrossak.com.

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