Pat Proctor

Pat Proctor served in the U.S. Army from 1989 to 2019. Proctor earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Purdue University in 1994; master's degrees from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies, and the U.S. Army War College; and a doctorate in history from Kansas State University in 2014.[4][1] Proctor's career experience includes working as an assistant professor at Benedictine College and Wichita State University and owning ProSIM Company.[1] He has also served in the Kansas House of Representatives and worked as an assistant professor at Wichita State University.[11][12]

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

Pat Proctor is a retired U.S. Army Colonel, small business owner, college professor, Kansas State Representative, and candidate for Kansas Secretary of State. Pat served from 1989 to 2019, rising from Private to Colonel, with combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat and his wife own restaurants in Leavenworth and Manhattan. And, for the last seven years, he has taught as a professor in the Homeland Security program at Wichita State University. In the Kansas House, Representative Proctor serves as Chairman of the Joint Committee on Kansas Security and Chairman of the House Elections Committee. During his time in the Legislature, Pat carried and passed the Citizens-Only Voting amendment and the SAVE Kansas Act and fought to make Election Day once again Election Day in Kansas.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

I am fighting to restore confidence in our elections by increasing transparency, combating non-citizen voting and ballot harvesting, and cleaning up our voter rolls.Confidence in our elections is essential to our form of government and our way of life, confidence that every valid vote—and only valid votes—are counted. It is core to who we are as a people.As a small business owner, I believe it is the job of government to empower job creators, not slow them down. I want to transform the Secretary of State's Business Division into an entrepreneurship engine, arming small business owners with the tools they need to succeed and grow.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

There has never been a nation like the United States in the history of the world, where you are not a member of the nation because of how you look, how you speak, or how you pray, but because you believe in certain principles—that we are all created equal, equal under the law, and endowed by our Creator with the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. But our elections are the glue that holds us together. If we lose faith in our elections, we will fly apart as a country. I swore an oath, all those years ago when I first put on the uniform, to support and defend our Constitution, our form of government, our way of life. That oath didn't end when I took off the uniform.

What organizations or individuals have endorsed your campaign?

Kansans for Life

Kansas Family Voice

30 Representatives

2 Former Election Chairs

7 State Senators

3 Former State Representatives

1 State School Board Member

Pat Proctor did not complete [the profile publisher]'s 2024 Candidate Connection survey.

Pat Proctor did not complete [the profile publisher]'s 2022 Candidate Connection survey.

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I have a lifetime of service. I enlisted as a private in the Army in 1989 and retired as a colonel in July 2019. I served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. Since leaving the Army, I have continued to serve through my church and service organizations here in Leavenworth.

I am also an educator. I teach a couple days a week as an assistant professor in the Homeland Security program at Wichita State University.

Finally, I'm a business owner. My wife and I own Baan Thai Restaurant and have turned it into the biggest Thai restaurant chain in Kansas. Our success has allowed us to give back to our community; we're heavily invested in revitalizing downtown Leavenworth.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

Bringing jobs and opportunity back to Leavenworth is job #1!During my lifetime of service, I learned that leaders must be servants first, putting service above self.Our kids deserve a world-class education; we have got to bring accountability to our education spending.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Once I decided to retire from the Army, my wife and I started working on the house we wanted to spend the rest of our lives in. it's a neat old house on Kickapoo street.

When we started working on the house, we found a couple of kids living in our garage. They were maybe 20 years old, homeless, and addicted to drugs.

As we got to know our neighbors, we found that a lot of folks were hurting. Many were unemployed or underemployed and dependent on a government check to survive.

These aren't bad folks; they're victims of the system that was intended to help them.

I am running for my neighbors. They deserve a future, opportunities, and hope.

What do you perceive to be your state’s greatest challenges over the next decade?

People deserve opportunity and hope for the future.

The programs designed to help low-income folks in my neighborhood have trapped them in poverty. Food stamps, welfare, and the proposed Medicaid expansion all have salary caps at or near the poverty line. We're punishing people for trying to improve their lives.

We need to make it easier for small businesses to hire people, too.

State taxes on Baan Thai went up nearly twenty thousand dollars in 2016 and another twenty thousand in 2017. That's a full-time employee that I can't hire. Multiply that across the whole town and Kansas has taxed away hundreds of good jobs.