These are opinion pieces authored by Women in Politics Club officers. They do not represent the views of the club nor Churchill as a whole. We hope you bring our new perspectives!
Author: Noura Habona | Editor: Elizabeth Qiu and Mia Alexander
On Tuesday, November 16, 2021, Amie Hoeber guest spoke to 100+ students in a joint event hosted by the Women in Politics (WiP) and Women in Business (WiB) clubs at Winston Churchill High School. Here is a summary of what was covered!
About Amie
Ms. Hoeber was the Republican nominee for Congress in Maryland’s Sixth Congressional District in 2016 and 2018. She was also recently appointed by Governor Larry Hogan to be a Member of the Montgomery County Board of Elections. She is President of AMH Consulting, a Potomac, Maryland company. Since 1991 she has provided consulting on a wide range of defense matters.
Prior to founding her consulting company, Ms. Hoeber held several senior management positions at TRW’s Federal Systems Group in Fairfax, VA. Before joining the industry in 1986, Ms. Hoeber served as Deputy Under Secretary of the Army in President Reagan’s Administration. Earlier she was on the staff of several defense think tanks, including the Rand Corporation, and was a leader in several professional groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the NBC Industry Group. She has authored and co-authored numerous books and articles on military strategy and other national security issues.
Ms. Hoeber was a member of the Board of Directors of Versar, Inc., and was Chairman of the Board of EAI Corporation and of Hinz Consulting. She was also on the Board of the House of Ruth Maryland for more than a decade and was a co-founder of CLONE, an organization that focuses on mentoring young women in the defense business, both uniformed and civilian.
Ms. Hoeber is also an artist specializing in glassblowing and acrylic abstract painting. Her glass has been in a juried show; she also donates some of her art pieces to charity and political auctions.
What happened at the meeting?
Amie Hoeber (who is a girlboss) visited Churchill High School for our Guest Speaker event and I think we can all agree that she did not disappoint. Hoeber started off her presentation with a simple piece of advice: “life is mostly an accident.” She went to Stanford originally planning to be a doctor but then switched paths to studying political science. When she didn’t know how she was going to pay her rent the next week, the Stanford Research institute gave her a military ballistics job. As if by accident, everything fell into place for her.
Amie has seen firsthand the lack of representation women face in male-dominated industries. Her first professional meeting was just with her and 3,000 other men. It was pretty intimidating, but she took it as an opportunity to stand out. As the only woman in the room, she was definitely memorable.
As a chemical warfare and defense expert, she was featured on a 60 Minutes episode! To her surprise, president-elect Ronald Reagan watched the episode and wanted to hire her. It was just an accident that happened to fly by. Within the Reagan administration, she served as deputy undersecretary of the army, where she mostly did military research and development.
After the Reagan Administration, she worked for a smaller company. As time went by and her children started their own lives, she decided to start her own business consulting company, and she has been doing that for almost 30 years now. Her company does work for all of the various defense contractors locally, focusing on nuclear and border security in the military. A one-year fellowship at Harvard University came around for people who were at the end of their careers. She joined this fellowship because she didn’t want to be the type of person to just “die at her desk, [I] wanted to do something impactful.”
Things started to get political as she decided to run for Congress against former Representative John Delaney (D). She talked to some of her friends from the Reagan Administration and tossed her hat in the ring. Hoeber started off strong as she won the Republican primaries against her six opponents. However, she ultimately lost to Delaney in the general election. She credits her defeat to “the power of incumbency.” To finish off her amazing political career she ran again in another intense election against David Trone (D). She attributes her defeat in this election to Trone’s outrageous campaign budget. As for her current political life, she was appointed by Governor Larry Hogan to serve on the Elections Board of Montgomery County.
Throughout her presentation, I felt empowered by her hard work and accomplishments.
After an amazing presentation, things started to get heated during the Q&A. When questioned on her political party affiliation, Hoeber clarified that she identifies as more of a moderate “Larry Hogan” type of Republican. She believes that “the world works better when the government is less involved in people’s lives.” (In fact, when asked about the decriminalization of marijuana, she stated that it’s not any worse than alcohol and she has no objection to its recreational use). When asked about her views on abortion, she stated that the government should have no interference in a women’s personal life. She then was asked what she thought about Trump’s handling of the January 6th Capitol Riot and she responded that she was extremely appalled by the lack of civil behavior. Despite supporting him in the 2016 election, she is no longer a supporter of Trump and thinks that his administration caused extreme divisiveness.
When asked about advice that she had for students in terms of politics she said find a candidate you like and work for them. She admits that she didn’t have any real understanding of what was involved in a campaign until she signed up for one. In terms of business, she said it’s like jumping off a cliff but she definitely thinks it’s worth taking the risk because “life is not a dress rehearsal, you have to do what you want or else you are not fulfilling your potential.” With the many aspects of the presentation that made Amie Hoeber such an impactful speaker, she wanted to leave the audience with one thing: the importance of education. She herself earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Stanford University and went on to graduate school studying Mathematics and Operations Research at Stanford, American University, and UCLA. She pursued this extensive list of higher education because she grew up with a keen sense of the importance of education. Hoeber said that people should get as much education as they can because you never know what you need to think about. In the words of Amie, “It doesn’t matter if you go to MC or Harvard — there is always a chance to get a proper education.” This article definitely does not encompass the amazing woman that Amie Hoeber is, and the officers and members of the Women In Politics and Women in Business clubs thank her immensely for her visit.
Thank you, Amie, for taking the time out of your day to come to speak to us! We are so grateful 🙂
Women Inside Politics 