Ms. Helen Van Etten
Republican National Committeewoman;
A Director for Kansas Board of Regents
Republican Party activity
Helen Van Etten was elected in 2008 as the Kansas Republican Party National Committeewoman. She has served as a delegate at the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Republican National Conventions. She has also served on the Budget Committee, RNC Site Selection Committee and RNC debate Committee. Furthermore, she serves as the RNC Rule Committee as well as the RNC Executive Committee.
Van Etten has been an active in the Kansas Republican Party for over 20 years. She served as the president of the Kansas-Federation of Republican Women's Shawnee Chapter. Van Etten is a national board member of the National Federation of the Grand Order of Pachyderm Clubs. She also served as a trustee to the PAC Maggie’s List, which seeks to increase the number of Republican women elected to public office. She was the secretary for Republicans Overseas. Recently, she has been elected as the co-chair of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Conservative Leadership Caucus.
Public service
Since 1985, Helen Van Etten has been an audiologist. She works for the Topeka School District as the chief audiologist. In 1988, Van Etten was on the board of directors for the Kansas Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and remained on the board until 2006. Between 2004 and 2007, she served on the advisory committee for KAN Be Healthy, a Kansas State Medicaid program for youths and young adults. In 2010, Van Etten was appointed to the Board of Governors of the Eisenhower Excellence in Public Service Series.
2013, she was appointed to the Kansas Board of Regents by Kansas Governor Sam Brownback (R). She has served on several of the board's committees, including chair of the Academic Affairs Standing Committee, the Midwest Higher Education Compact (MHEC) as a representative and commissioner, Washburn University Board of Regents, and the Higher Education and K-12 Coordination Council.
Helen Van Etten holds a Masters Degree in Audiology from Wayne State University and a Doctorate in Audiology from University of Florida.