Road to Retirement Leads Right Back to Public Service for USU Alumna

By Sharon Holland

Dr. Rosemary Lesser was only 16 hours to retirement. Her long-standing plan to shutter her private
medical practice in Ogden, Utah, was in place, and she was set to close its doors forever on December 31, 2020. She had devoted a decade and a half to the Air Force, followed by 28 years in private practice. It was time to take a break and enjoy retirement with her Uniformed Services University classmate and husband, Dr. David Lesser. But life had other plans. 

Dr. Rosemary Lesser raises an issue from the Utah State
House floor. The USU class of 1981 alumna is now the
Utah State 10th District Representative. (Courtesy photo)

On December 30, 2020, during her last shift in the hospital, Lesser’s phone rang with an offer. It was her local political party calling to see if she might be interested in throwing her name into the ring for a seat recently vacated after the death of its incumbent. She mulled it over for two days before she said ‘yes.’ Less than a week later, she filed her paperwork, and on January 10, her name appeared on the ballot for a special election. Lesser was one of eight candidates seeking the seat, and the voters – Utah state delegates – rank ordered their preferences. She won the election and took office on January 19, after relishing retirement for only a few short days. 

Lesser was no stranger to the political arena. She actively assisted a Presidential candidate with his campaign in 2019, traveling to multiple states throughout the U.S. in a bid for the White House seat. For several years prior to that, she had been involved in her local community, advocating for the poor. In fact, partly because of her efforts, the state legislature repealed a bill to increase a tax on groceries, which Lesser had seen as an attack on the poor. According to the Department of Agriculture, poor families spend 36% of their income on food, as opposed to the eight percent that high-income households spend. Now, Utah State 10th District Representative Rosemary Lesser has her sights on eliminating the food tax altogether. 

The Road to Public Service

After graduating in the first class of women undergraduates at the University of Notre Dame, Lesser was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. She continued her education at USU, graduating in 1981 as an M.D. She specialized in obstetrics and gynecology, and after her residency training, was assigned to duty stations in Germany and Texas. 

Dr. Rosemary Lesser, now a Utah State delegate, graduated from 
USU in 1981 and served in the U.S. Air Force medical corps for
15 years. (Courtesy photo)

After 15 years of service to the nation, she left the Air Force and settled in Ogden, where she worked in the Ogden Women’s Clinic, and as an OB hospitalist at Ogden Regional Hospital and McKay-Dee Hospital. The call to serve remained strong, however, and both she and her husband volunteered with the Ouelessebougou Alliance, helping to provide surgical care to people in Mali, West Africa. They also joined Notre Dame’s medical team to deliver babies in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. Their concern for society in general paved the way for their volunteer community advocacy efforts at home.  

For the foreseeable future, Lesser will focus on the food tax issue and a number of medical issues, including her efforts to expand Medicaid coverage for a year after childbirth. Eventually, she will make her way back to her retirement plans, but for now, she will continue enjoying her service to the community and drawing on her experience in military and public service. 

“My education at USU emphasized the need to be an advocate for my patients,” Lesser says. “That was important to me as a clinician. As a legislator, it is now just as important to be an advocate for the people in my community.”