After serving in the Second World War, he went into law in Fairbanks, Alaska where he became a US Attorney soon after. When Dwight Eisenhower was president, Stevens worked in the Interior and helped to make Alaska a state. In 1968 he was appointed to the Senate, where he served for the next forty years. While in the Senate he was known for taking action for his own state: preserving Alaskan wilderness areas, protecting fisheries, and building the Trans Alaska Pipeline. He also helped set up the US Olympic Committee. In 2008 he was charged with major crimes related to corruption days before his reelection, which he lost to Mark Begich. He planned on trying to get his Senate seat back after he the charges were dropped, but he died in a plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness in 2010.