Melanie Meier, District
Biography
Melanie Mier was born into an army family in Wurzburg, Germany. Upon her father's retirement from the military, during Melanie's senior year of high schooll, the Sanders family finally settled in Leavenworth, Kansas and has been there ever since.
Melanie received her post-secondary education from the University of Kansas. While at KU, Melanie joined the Army ROTC. She graduated in 1989 a Distinguished Military Graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics.
Melanie went on active duty in 1990 as an Army Air Defense Artillery Officer in 1990 and transferred in 1994 to Military Intelligence. She served most of her eight -year commitment at Fort Hood, Texas, and Seoul, Korea. As a Captain in Korea Melanie attended night school, earning a Masters Degree in Management and spending her Saturdays as a volunteer at the Military Spouse’s Club gift shop to help raise money for military children’s scholarships and local Korean charities. After eight years active duty, while still in Korea, she transferred to the Army Reserve.
Continuing her public service career as a Department of Defense civilian employee, Melanie served as a security specialist for the Special Operations Command in Korea, the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of the Navy in Washington, DC, and the 24th Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas.
As an officer in the Reserves, Melanie has kept quite busy. Besides the one weekend a month and four weeks of annual training each year, she was mobilized immediately after 9-11 for Operation Noble Eagle with the US Army Corps of Engineers and reported to Fort Hamilton in New York City for initial recovery operations. She spent a year on active duty with the Transatlantic Program Center (a branch of the US Army Corps of Engineers that coordinates the engineer contracting in the Middle East and Africa). Then in 2005, Melanie came on active duty again in response to the disastrous Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in New Orleans as part of Task Force Unwatering. Their mission was to pump the water out of New Orleans and Melanie served as the U.S. liaison with a German task force who were there pumping water out of the 9th Ward.
Melanie met her husband, Tom, while they were both Lieutenants at Fort Hood, Texas. They were married in 1991 in Leavenworth, where they reside today. In between serving as the Chief of Personnel Security, doing her reserve duty and traveling to Fort Leavenworth to fight as one of the bad guys during simulated wargames, she managed to volunteer with the Red Cross at Irwin Army Hospital and served on the board of the Historical and Archeological Society of Fort Riley for 2 terms. Then when Tom left Fort Riley on 2 January 2005 for Iraq, Melanie came home to Leavenworth. She started working full time at Fort Leavenworth and volunteered to be the membership chairman of the Leavenworth Historical Museum Association. After a year in Iraq, Tom secured a position at Fort Leavenworth.
In her spare time; Melanie enjoys shooting trap, running marathons, antique shopping and working on historical homes. Tom and Melanie joined the Fort Leavenworth Fox Hunt in 2006. In January 2007 Melanie and Tom bought 129 acres just outside of Leavenworth on Mount Olivet Road, and happily settled down on “the ranch.”
Melanie was elected to the Kansas House as the 40th District Representative in the fall of 2008. Prior to her election Melanie worked as a defense contractor on Fort Leavenworth. Shortly after assuming her duties in the House, Melanie was mobilized by the U.S. Army Reserve and a year-long tour of duty in southern Iraq. She returned in January 2010 to serve the remainder of her legislative term.
Melanie is the Ranking Democratic Member on the House Committee on Veterans, Military, and Homeland Security. She also serves on the House Corrections and Juvenile Justice and Judiciary Committees.
