Redkey to D.C.?

Kent Abernathy’s career has been wide-ranging.

He was a banker in Indianapolis.

He’s served in the Army in Iraq.

He worked at The Pentagon.

He’s led Indiana’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

Now he hopes his next move will be back to Washington, D.C., this time as a member of Congress.

Abernathy, 63, a Redkey native, is one of a long list of Republicans hoping to take over Indiana’s 5th Congressional District seat from the retiring Susan Brooks.

“It comes down to duty, honor, country,” said Abernathy, a United States Military Academy graduate. “One of the first things you learn as a cadet at West Point is the cadet motto, and that’s really been the guiding principal throughout my life …

“I really think it’s an important time and we need principled leaders in Washington who are willing to put country first and make the right decisions, focus on getting solutions for the American public.”

Abernathy, whose mom Mary Rees still lives in the house where he grew up, had worked in state government with Indiana Department of Environmental Management and then as executive director of the BMV.

He most recently served as executive director of the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service, a job he finished up work on last summer.

He was considering his next opportunities when he sent emails expressing his interest in working in a Congressional office to Sens. Todd Young and Mike Braun as well as Rep. Susan Brooks. Before any of them could respond, Brooks announced her intention to not seek a fifth term in office.

He started getting phone calls encouraging him to run to become a legislator rather than work for one. So, he decided to jump into the race for the 5th District that stretches from the northern part of Indianapolis and includes all or parts of Boone, Hamilton, Madison, Tipton, Howard, Grant and Blackford counties (including a handful of Dunkirk residents).

Abernathy is one of 10 Republicans to have declared their intention to run for the seat. The field also includes Indiana treasurer Kelly Mitchell. (Indiana Rep. Steve Braun also entered the race, but later suspended his campaign for health reasons.)

In a crowded primary race, he said it will be important to “sell” himself to the voters.

“I think the key for us is going to be able to get out to folks, talk to as many folks as possible, listen to what they have to say, introduce them to who I am and let them take the look at the record,” said Abernathy, adding that he and his staff are planning “Coffee with Kent” events for that purpose. “Let them take a look at what I’ve done in a lifetime of service, what I value … and I feel pretty comfortable that most people … in the 5th Congressional District, in the state of Indiana, even across the country, I think those values still ring true.”

Those values were formed in Jay County, where Abernathy was a member of Redkey High School’s final graduating class. He went on to West Point thanks to a nomination from Sen. Birch Bayh, and after graduation in 1979 he started a military career that took him to Korea, Germany and Iraq.

He stayed active in the National Guard after leaving active duty in 1986, eventually becoming commander of his battalion and aviation brigade on Sept. 2, 2001. The 9/11 attacks led him back into military service, spending more than six years a team chief in the Army’s 24/7 operation center at the Pentagon, a year deployed in Iraq as chief of staff of the Iraq Assistance Group and then a few more years at the Pentagon until he hit mandatory retirement age.

As he looks toward elected office, he draws heavily from his military experience. He counts defending the Constitution — he said he’s “alarmed” by the current impeachment process, saying such a decision should be left for voters at the ballot box later this year — supporting the military, improving the VA and helping homeless veterans at the top of his list of campaign issues.

He also said Washington needs to be fiscally responsible, crediting lessons he learned under former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels.

“One of the things we ask Congress to do is pass a budget, and we’ve not done a very good job on that,” said Abernathy. “We haven’t done it on time for decades. We do continuing resolutions, which are harmful. And we don’t make the tough decisions.

“The $23 trillion deficit we have is harmful. I really think it’s a national threat.”

Abernathy has experience in finance as a banker, a role in which he helped set up the financing for Indy Racing League’s split from CART. After leaving active duty for the second time, he joined the state government under then-Gov. Mitch Daniels in 2010 as chief of staff of IDEM and took over the BMV in early 2015.

It’s all of those experiences that he believes make him a strong candidate to take over Brooks’ seat.

“My life has been about service and this is an opportunity that arose,” he said, adding that holding office was never one of his goals. “And I really think that this is a critical time.

“We have people who their life revolves around getting elected and getting re-elected. I think we need people who go out and get the job done and come home.”