Arizona attorney general candidate Dawn Grove forged her own path as attorney for family business

Business executive Dawn Grove said she felt a religious calling to work in the legal field and run for Arizona attorney general.

She is the corporate counsel of Karsten Manufacturing Corp., the parent company of PING, the conglomerate best known for its golf-related equipment started by her grandfather and other relatives.

While Grove might have joined the family business, her career path was of her own making.

In her first race for public office, Grove faces a crowded field of Republican contenders for the GOP nomination for attorney general, the state's most senior legal position, in the Aug. 2 primary.

Her Republican challengers include Lacy Cooper, former border security section chief for the U.S. Attorney’s Office; attorney Rodney Glassman; former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Andrew Gould; former Maricopa County prosecutor Abe Hamadeh; and Eloy lawyer Tiffany Shedd.

Grove, 55, lives in Phoenix with her husband and has three children.

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What distinguishes Grove from others?

Grove said her experience in the private sector, combined with a previous lack of runs for political office, distinguishes her from the other Republican contenders for attorney general.

"I'm the only candidate who hasn't spent their entire career in government or run for office multiple times. I have the most experience in the legal arenas that the attorney general has jurisdiction over and I'm the best prepared to fight government overreach," she said in an interview with The Arizona Republic, adding that the latter is a primary issue facing Arizonans.

"All the government experience in the world can't tell you what it's like to have the heavy hand of government come down on you as a private business or private citizen. And so I come to this with a very different outlook."

The pandemic was an especially trying time for Grove, when the company was shut down for health reasons and also had to navigate a supply-chain crisis.

"I was out on the manufacturing line, as well as most everyone in my family, keeping things moving and meeting our customer demands. And there's no government bureaucrat who understands what it means to do that," she said.

When it comes to the issue of the previous election, Grove said she would not havcertified Arizona's 2020 presidential elections with Joe Biden as the winner if she were attorney general.

An advocate for problem solving

Grove said she wanted to be a lawyer since she was 16 years old out of a desire to be a "problem-solving advocate."

"My family were problem solvers in the engineering realm. My grandpa would literally come over to my house, open and close the drapes and the drawers, see if there was anything that needed fixing. If he couldn't find anything to fix, he would sit down and take a nap. He was always looking for, ‘What's the problem that I can come fix for people?’" she said.

Grove did not have not the mechanical ability nor the desire for engineering, but she wanted to help people in her own way. She found that she had a knack for thinking out of the box to help friends or her little sister find solutions to policies they faced at school or elsewhere.

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"My little sister bought a toy with her own money, I think it was a kite. You had to build it, but the way they had done the instructions made it impossible to do so. And so I helped her write a letter to the company and they refunded her money," she said.

Grove enjoyed her spin on carrying out the family tradition of helping people.

"It was always in the details of the rules and the process that you would figure out how to overcome the problem," she said, noting she sees that today with the issue of border security.

"We are throwing wide open our borders so that it's not being guarded and that legal immigrants can't get in and the illegal ones are pouring in. How do we help those who are truly, rightfully seeking asylum when we're not following our Constitution and our goals?"

Paying for law school and time abroad

Grove's family was initially against her going to law school, wanting her to pursue engineering instead.

They would not pay for her to go, so she knew she would have to get a scholarship to pay for tuition. She received a full ride to Pepperdine University, where she took a course with former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Her family would eventually come around, and she went on to join as counsel after working for other businesses as their legal counsel.

Grove says that a church mission trip to Zimbabwe four years ago underscored the importance of private business in the U.S. She said that she saw how state ownership of property and other enterprises drove the "job creators" and largest sources of tax revenues out of the country.

"I came out with just this sense of … how important it is for private business to thrive so that our whole economy, our whole public school system, our whole law enforcement and security, military and all of those things can be rightly supported with those tax revenues from those thriving businesses," Grove said. "It undergirds everything."

Experience on campaign trail

Grove said how much she enjoys the campaign trail and has grown as a result has surprised her.

"I have felt all the more inspired to continue this race because of the people I've met along the way and their stories. It's changed me in that I'm perhaps more naturally a more quiet person,” she said. “I jump in there whether I feel like I'm 100% the silver-tongued person I wish I were because I love my state, my country, and I know I'm supposed to do this," Grove added, referring to meetings and campaign events.

Stalwart conservative over life

Grove said her commitment to her conservative beliefs have only deepened over time, noting that her first job during law school was for the National Right to Life Committee in Washington, D.C.

"I remember talking to a friend recently, who said that it seems like every 10 years, she completely changes all the things she thought she believed. And I feel for me it's been sort of the opposite," she said.

"The things that my grandparents and parents have taught me and the importance of 'Made in America' manufacturing … I have come to feel more and more strongly about as I've entered my 50s."

Tara Kavaler is a politics reporter at The Arizona Republic. She can be reached by email at tara.kavaler@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @kavalertara. 

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona attorney general primary 2022 candidate: Dawn Grove