When Karen Gibson left Bozeman in 1982 to attend Purdue University on a ROTC scholarship, she thought she would complete her engineering degree and her army service and then decide the direction she’d like to take her life.
But in the end, she stayed 33 years, retiring last year as a lieutenant general.
Her military career has since led to her appointment as the next U.S. Senate sergeant-at-arms, a position that has taken on particular significance since the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol raised questions about security and preparedness.
She will be sworn in Monday on the Senate floor.
Gibson wasn’t looking for a new job when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office called and offered it to her, but she said she felt an obligation to accept.
“I was just so angry and appalled on Jan. 6,” she said. “... You take an oath in the military to uphold and defend the Constitution, and this was a very constitutional process that was unfolding that day, so to see Americans attacking it was shocking. And what bothered me, in particular, is that this was the kind of activity that I have seen in other countries … and I never thought I would see this in my own nation.”
As the sergeant-at-arms, Gibson will oversee security and administration of the Senate complex, which includes managing information technology, enforcing the chamber’s rules and escorting the president and official guests of the Senate.
Gibson moved to Bozeman in 1969, when she was four years old, because her father, David Gibson, had accepted a job as an engineering professor at Montana State University.
She attended Emerson Elementary, Willson Middle, Bozeman Junior High and Bozeman High. She spent a lot of time outdoors, hunting, fishing, hiking and skiing.
One summer, she took courses at MSU, leaving her house at 12:56 p.m. for her 1 p.m. class.
“When you’re 18 and eager to be out in the world on your own, that’s not a very appealing environment,” she said about attending college so close to home.
Instead, Gibson decided to attend school out of state and signed up for the Army ROTC as a way to pay for it. But she always knew she would return to Bozeman.
After graduating from Purdue University, Gibson was stationed in Alaska as an active duty army officer. She loved it.
“It turns out I just really liked being a soldier,” she said. “I liked that it challenged every aspect of my being, mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally.”
She in time became an intelligence officer and was deployed overseas, including to Afghanistan and Iraq.
“It felt like what I was doing was very relevant and I was part of a team of professionals who were all committed to accomplishing something together that was really important,” she said. “I found that tremendously satisfying and I could never think of anything that would be more meaningful than what I was doing.”
Of all her roles in the military, Gibson said she most enjoyed serving as a senior intelligence officer for the multi-national campaign to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria from 2017 to 2018. There, she was able to see her team’s success as they chipped away the group’s vast territory.
She has since retired and has been working part-time, including as an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University teaching strategy, policy and military operations. She had also been preparing to move back to Bozeman.
Then the insurrection happened.
Shortly after, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tapped retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré to review Capitol security and he assembled a group of retired military officials to assist. Gibson decided to see if she could join.
“I said, ‘I wanted to be part of this process,’ because I was so angry,” she said. “And I think you don’t get to complain about things if you’re not willing to be part of the solution.”
The group spent six weeks reviewing the events of Jan. 6 and developing recommendations for how to improve Capitol security. The group shared its findings with federal lawmakers, including Schumer, who, following her presentation, offered her the job as the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms.
“Here I was looking to make things better, and I had an opportunity to do that,” Gibson said. “... I cannot think of a more important way for me to spend my time right now than to help improve security of the Capitol and our elected senators at this pivotal time in our national history.”
Gibson said she looks forward to implementing some of the group’s recommendations and taking a more comprehensive look at how to improve the Capitol.
“I am motivated to put in place some fixes to ensure this doesn’t happen again because the threats to our elected leaders across the political spectrum have increased dramatically in the last few years,” she said. “... I have spent much of my time since 9/11 ensuring that foreign terrorists could not attack the United States, but now I see that this threat of domestic violent extremists is greater.”
She also plans to prioritize restoring confidence in the Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms and working with other agencies in the Capitol to bolster morale after the recent resignations of the former sergeant-at-arms, his House counterpart and the Capitol Police Chief.
With her appointment, Gibson will be the second woman to serve as Senate sergeant-at-arms. She will also lead the first all-female leadership team the office has had in its more than two-century history with Kelly Fado as deputy sergeant-at-arms and Jennifer Hemingway as chief of staff.
Even with her new job, Gibson knows she’ll be back in Bozeman.
She plans to break ground next month on land she purchased near Leverich Canyon in 1993 and is still intending to retire there.
“I never felt a strong affinity for any other state that I lived in,” Gibson said. “I’ve always thought of myself as a Montanan.”
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