Denise Derkacs

County Council - Chair

Term expires: December 31, 2024

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Chair:  Denise was re-elected as council chair at the January 9, 2024 council meeting. 

Bio: Denise was elected to the County Council in the November 2020 general election. Prior to her election, she served on the Community Development Advisory Board from its formation in 2018 to 2020.

Denise is retired from a 20-year career at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she served as Chief of Staff to senior-level management and was involved in all aspects of programmatic and operational initiatives. She previously worked as a technical writer and as a journalist at newspapers in Texas, Iowa, and Hawaii. She holds a B.A. in Journalism from Rutgers University and an M.A. in Organizational Communication from the University of New Mexico.

Born and raised in New Jersey, Denise and her husband have lived in 10 states and settled in New Mexico in 1982. Together they raised their three sons here in Los Alamos County.

As a member of the Council, Denise hopes to advance County efforts in three key areas: housing development to address the need for low- and middle-income housing, commercial sustainability to enable small businesses to thrive, and community services to support growth and preserve quality of life.