Derek Chowen

ALPENA — From the time he was a little boy in school in Alpena, Derek Chowen has always wanted to be President of the United States.

In 2024, he will pursue that dream, as he has filed the necessary documentation with the Federal Election Commission to run for the Oval Office.

Chowen now lives in Charlevoix, but has many friends and supporters in Alpena and Northeast Michigan, he said.

Chowen, who graduated from Alpena High School in 1990, said he is running as an Independent and has received his candidate number. Additionally, his election committee has been approved by the FEC and, from here on out, will report campaign finances to the federal agency.

Chowen is listed on the FEC website as a candidate for president in 2024 and, as of Wednesday, nobody else has filed to run against him.

The plan to run, he said, stemmed from serious conversations with his father while his dad was ill and on his deathbed. Chowen said his father told him to follow his dream and do it.

“We kind of put together a platform and we had some arguments, but we would intersect and we would have a good discussion, which our country needs more of, and we planned to do it together, but then he passed,” Chowen said.

Chowen said there are many reasons to run for president, but the main one is to help put an end to the seemingly endless divide between politicians and residents that accomplishes little and turns Americans against one another.

“I think people like you and I have an advantage over people in politics now, because we are for the fellow man,” he said. “People now at the top like the power. They like the money. And they don’t really care about us. There is too much screaming and yelling, temper tantrums, and we just need to find a different way to communicate. We need to have discussions and not yelling and screaming matches.”

Chowen said he expects that, early on, people won’t take him seriously or give him a chance, but he said he already has supporters in 50 states working to get him on ballots there. He said getting his message out and being able to counter other candidates’ positions are important and he will rely on social media to help get name recognition and grow his base.

Another reason Chowen thinks he can pull off the upset is because many voters feel like they have been left behind by the two primary political parties.

He said both Republicans and Democrats have positioned themselves far to the right and left and people who are more moderate struggle with the extremism of the major parties’ positions.

“Like millions of other people, I feel like a man without a party, or a man without a country,” Chowen said. “I don’t like the two-party system, because I think it is a uniparty system now, and I think they all come together behind closed doors to make decisions that keep them in power. I don’t believe in that, and I think we all are misrepresented or not represented at all.”

In order to go toe-to-toe with established challengers like Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, Chowen will likely have to defeat another Independent challenger and move on to the general election.

To compete with higher profile and more financially supported Republican and Democratic candidates, Chowen knows it is going to take a lot of money. He said that, for now, he is self-funding his campaign, but he hopes that, when people learn more about him and what he stands for, the financial support will follow.

“The momentum is already building, and the support I have received thus far has been amazing,” he said. “We have a lot of work to do, but it is exciting and something needs to be done to help fix this country. I made my dad a promise and he said before he died, ‘If anyone can do it, you can.'”

After graduating from Alpena High, Chowen attended Alpena Community College for two years before transferring to Northern Michigan University, but quit school to come back to Alpena to start a technology business with his father. He eventually moved across the state and was a president for Citizens Bank before it was bought out and he was replaced.

From there, he took a project management job, which allowed him to work around the world in the industrial construction field. He moved back to northern Michigan to be near his father and worked in the aerospace field before finding his latest calling as an author and candidate.

Chowen knows the odds are long that he could get elected, but he said stranger things have happened and he is willing to give it his all and endure the pressure from the larger parties to do what’s right for the American people.

“I know, at some point, they will come after me, especially if things go the way I plan them to,” he said. “This will be the ultimate in grassroots. It really is. Nobody has ever done this before, but, sometimes, the longshot is the best shot.”