Background
Koch, Amy T. was born on October 8, 1971.
Koch, Amy T. was born on October 8, 1971.
Koch graduated Buffalo High School in 1990 and attended in Moorhead, Minnesota. Amy attended North Hennepin Community College for a year before deciding to join the Air Force. She studied Russian at the Defense Language Institute in California.
Koch represented District 19, which includes portions of Hennepin and Wright counties in the northwestern Twin Cities metropolitan area. She is also a regular commentator for Minnesota local media. Life and A Republican, Koch was first elected to the Senate in a special election held on November 22, 2005, after Senator Mark Ourada announced his resignation effective December 31, 2005.
She was re-elected in the 2006 and 2010 general elections.
She previously served as an assistant minority leader, and was the first woman to serve as Majority Leader, and the first Republican to do so since the end of the non-partisan era. In 2011, Minnesota faced a $6.2 billion deficit.
On December 15, 2011, Koch resigned from the Senate leadership, and announced that she would not seek re-election. Later in the day local news media reported that four Republican state senators indicated Koch had an "inappropriate" relationship with a male staffer.
On December 21, Koch apologized for "engaging in a relationship with a Senate staffer," admitted to making "mistakes and errors in judgment," and stated, "lieutenant is important that I spend time now focusing on the challenging days ahead as I work through some very personal issues."
Because of the timing of her resignation, she became the shortest-tenured majority leader in Minnesota Senate history.
In 1993, Amy was stationed in Fort Mead, Maryland to serve in the National Security Agency (National Security Agency). Her daughter Rachel was born during her time serving in the National Security Agency. In 1996, she got an honorary discharge from the Air Force and went back to Wright County to attend Saint Cloud University. She rejoined the family business and paid her way through college, graduating in 1999.
She loved school and earned her Master of Business Administration from Capella in 2009.
Koch is a part owner of HBK Properties Limited Liability Company in Buffalo.
Republican Party of Minnesota, Republican Party.
Majority Leader Koch helped integrate twenty new members of her caucus, while negotiating a challenging budget deficit that was turned into a surplus.
Married Christopher Koch.