By Judy Christie

Whether writing a letter in support of a piece of legislation, giving oral testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee of the Maryland General Assembly, or developing a system to track more than 70 different bills, Capt. Lynn A. Nash, USPHS (Ret), throws her time and energy into helping with issues that affect veterans and their families.

A MOAA Life member and legislative liaison for the Maryland Council of Chapters and Montgomery County Chapter, she is known for her “tremendous amount of energy and capability” in identifying and advocating legislatively for servicemembers, veterans, and retirees and their families — even adding efforts at lower levels of government to support efforts higher up.

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“Captain Nash realized that many of the initiatives from federal and state legislation rely on support from the counties and cities to implement,” said Lt. Col. Gary T. Palmer, USAF (Ret), president of the Maryland Council of Chapters. “She organized several campaigns to ensure that the local legislation was passed to support the higher level … clarifying needs and processes. Without this effort, many of the goals of the federal and state legislation would have gone unrealized.”

For her superior service in “a particularly hectic year,” Nash has been named the council-level recipient of the Colonel Steve Strobridge Legislative Liaison Award for her efforts in 2023.

Her volunteer work has sprung from her long career centered on public health policy and program development in the U.S. Army and U.S. Public Health Service. She has a doctorate in nursing services and has diverse federal interagency experience, with 30 years of uniformed service.

In MOAA, she has guided the Maryland Council of Chapter’s engagement on federal legislative issues throughout the year, including leading one of two Maryland state teams during the association’s Advocacy in Action event and several self-initiated campaigns to support issues in the MOAA Legislative Action Center.

Nash also served as communications director for the Maryland Military Coalition, which coordinates the legislative activities of 19 Maryland veterans' organizations; became a registered lobbyist at her own expense to participate more effectively as an advocate; and tracked more than 70 different bills introduced in the 2023 Maryland General Assembly session to provide status updates to MOAA chapter presidents for their members.

Palmer cites this as an example of Nash’s skills: “The state authorized the counties to reduce property tax for veterans who are disability-rated but the counties were not aware or did not take action. Lynn created a process for the chapters to participate and personally led the activity in Montgomery County.”

[RELATED: MOAA's Military State Report Card and Tax Guide]

And Nash doesn’t give up when a priority stalls — such as the failure to pass Maryland legislation to eliminate incremental state taxes on retirement pay for those who served in uniform and remove age-based exemptions now in place, also to be applied to surviving spouse payments and all uniformed services, including the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and NOAA Corps.

“We’ll be back at it next year,” Nash said. “You can count on it.”

Judy Christie is a writer based in Colorado.