Steve Bender moved to Eagle, ID in 2019 after a 40-year career in Washington, DC working for Idaho Senator Jim McClure, Ronald Reagan, and Raytheon, where he was a systems and quality assurance engineer.
Born in Hays, Kansas, he was raised with a traditional midwestern work ethic and a strong belief in the Republican party. He first campaigned when he was only eight, knocking on doors for his father’s local race. As a college freshman in Northern California, he worked on Don Clausen’s congressional campaign. Three years later, he interned for Senator McClure’s Senate Steering Committee—an informal coalition of conservative Senators.
After graduating from San Diego State University with a Public Administration degree, he returned to Washington where he worked for Chairman McClure for the Senate Steering Committee and the Senate Republican Conference. During the second Reagan administration, he was a Presidential appointee in the DoD Legislative Affairs office. Following the end of President Reagan’s term, he was the Washington representative for The Aerospace Corporation, the Air Force Federally Funded R&D Center for space programs. In 1998 he began a 21-year career at Raytheon as a systems and quality assurance engineer.
Within six weeks of his arrival in Eagle, he was heavily involved in a grassroots effort to transform the Eagle government from a Democrat majority to a Republican Mayor and City Council with a conservative majority and he has stayed active in Eagle issues since then. In 2020 he became an Ada County PC and was elected Ada County Republican Treasurer and Region IV Vice Chairman.
Steve and his wife Carolyn have one daughter teaching middle school in Wendell, Idaho and another in Tampa, Florida working as an emergency room nurse. Steve and Carolyn enjoy RV road trips and hiking in their free time.
