https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi44VLt4TTg

Sen. Kent Lambert, without a doubt, is one of the lions of Colorado Senate. He is an intelligent and engaging member of the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, the six lawmakers who literally write the state budget; no dummies allowed.

Because of term limits, this was his last legislative session, and many anticipated some other kind of the political office for the popular Republican from Colorado Springs.

He has served on the powerful JBC since 2009, when the state and the country was sliding deeper into the recession facing $320 million in budget cuts. At the time, the Colorado Statesman described him as “best known for his staunch socially conservative views. But he has always toed the fiscally conservative line, and there’s no question that he’ll shake things up on the JBC.”

Leaving the legislature, things are looking up, he told Colorado Politics Monday, tacitly putting to bed speculation about whether he might have his sights set on local or higher office in the near future.

He never said never, however.

“I always manage to get in trouble eventually,” Lambert warned.

After some quality time with his grandchildren in California and Washington state, and perhaps before he puts in some quality fishing time on Skaguay Reservoir in Teller County, he plans to help his son Christopher build a 12-foot commercial telescope.

That’s what his son does for a living, including working with the world’s largest digital space camera.

After that, Lambert, who’s a youthful 65, said he’s seriously considering working on a PhD in systems engineering, because he’s fascinated with cybersecurity and molecular energy.

“That might be what I do,” Lambert said. “I don’t know if I want to totally retire. I just find all this stuff interesting.”

Lambert was elected to the Colorado House in 2006, but his first love as always been science.

A B-52 instructor pilot in the Air Force, Lambert became director of battle staff for a B-52 wing. He worked at the Pentagon rising from scientific analyst to division chief in the Air Force Studies and Analyses Agency.