Why are you running for office?

Red Wing is my home, I enjoy the people, the Mississippi River, the bluffs, the rolling hills, the history, the arts, and the recreational opportunities. As wonderful as the city is, we see too many people leaving Red Wing for better-paying jobs, affordable homes, better schools, and more variety in food and entertainment. I would like to see Red Wing maintain its charm while flourishing. We have all the resources for sustainable growth and development; we need bold leadership to take the initiative to move the city forward, but to do so without heaping the burden upon the taxpayers.

What experiences have prepared you to serve effectively in this role?

I bring over thirty years of experience from my career with the US Postal Service, complemented by my role as a small business owner in the retail printing industry.

During my time at the Postal Service, I held various positions, primarily serving as Postmaster for large delivery, retail, and production units. I led teams in areas such as retail, production, delivery, safety, and Lean Six Sigma, while managing numerous projects. My role involved close collaboration with the public to address their concerns. I served as Postmaster in cities including Chanhassen, Burnsville, St. Cloud, and Cottage Grove in Minnesota, as well as Manitowoc and Eau Claire in Wisconsin. My responsibilities included overseeing performance-driven analytics, budgeting, facilities management, human resources, marketing, and sales.

In addition, I worked in accounting services, where I managed disbursing, payroll, and various accounting procedures for a nationwide accounting and budgeting center. I coordinated financial processes across three National Accounting Service Centers located in Eagan, MN; St. Louis, MO; and San Mateo, CA. Collaborating with leaders at DC Headquarters, I developed and implemented processes to enhance accessibility and improve integrity.

These experiences have been developed in service to the public. The skills I have mastered allow me to assess city budgetary performance, determine paths forward to successful outcomes, and to establish accountability in the processes.

What are your top three priorities if elected?

1. Economic Stability & Growth

    a. Reduce Taxes

    b. Responsible Use of City Funds

    c. Promote Diverse Business Growth

    d. Build Synergistic Business / Community Relationships

2. Public Safety

    a. Safe Communities, ensuring maintained roads, sidewalks, storm & flood mitigation, and and lighted streets

    b. Responsive & Equipped Emergency Services

    c. Support the Police to maintain safe communities

3. Community Enrichment

    a. Encourage the Arts, seeking self-support first, prudently supporting infrastructure to ensure sustainability

    b. The city has a role in supporting the public library as a resource for all, but the council should be good stewards of city finances.

    c. Private alliances should be encouraged to grow and expand community enrichment activities.

How do plan to address your top priorities?

Demand budgeting transparency, we often see the fruits of our budget when a new, top-of-the-line vehicle is rolled out, the line items for new capital expenditures need to be reasonable and affordable.

Red Wing is holding onto business property opportunities, put it to work for the taxpayer; incentivize new business to set down roots; activate the Port Authority to seek professional medical, technological, state of the art industrial, and energy projects. Give the Port Authority the tools to be successful.

Encourage synergy between business and public good projects to ensure cultural heritage. Demand Historical Preservation, Theatre, and Art/Music Events, Special Groups seek private funding through support for special collections, purposes, sponsorships to help fund and sustain efforts.

Fund our public works department to maintain roads, sidewalks, parks, lights. Ensure proper planning and preparation for flood and storm water mitigation efforts are in place.

Ensure fire, police, and emergency services equipment is maintained with justifiable replacement protocol. Department heads need to ensure proper personnel training is ongoing and funded.

What do you believe is the greatest challenge facing the people you hope to represent?

The greatest challenge I foresee is that the few are sometimes louder than the many, this can skew the real issues facing the city. Our nation has become quite divided and the challenge will be to represent the concerns of the people appropriately. I encourage residents within the ward to voice their concerns, get involved, even if you are standing up for something that seems like common sense, oftentimes, the loudest voices hold sway to the detriment of the many.

Public service requires collaboration. How would you work with individuals who hold different viewpoints?

Public service is a collaboration and each of the seven seated council members have only one vote. Debate is necessary to win others over to your point of view. However, a willingness to be open to solutions that you haven't thought of is necessary. Not a single council member or individual knows everything or is an expert in all matters...having an open mind is a necessary critical thinking skill. Having professionals to speak to subjects that we, as council members, have little knowledge, becomes imperative.

How will you communicate with and remain accessible to your constituents?

I encourage constituents to communicate with me on any issue before the city, my phone and email accounts are always open. I intend to interact with constituents regularly by attending city meetings and events like the "night out" events, music in the park, or even while I and my wife are out walking our Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier Sancho in the neighborhood.

At the end of your term, what accomplishments would define success?

I would consider my term successful by realizing the Fleischman Maltery converted to retail and housing units, immediately transforming the urban core. Seeing new medical businesses occupying the empty business park on Mayo Hill and a major manufacturing entity calling Red Wing home located where the old Central Research was just torn down.

Additionally, the Water Treatment Facility, a $140M projected spend, replaced without driving our taxes to unaffordable heights.

I would like to see our population grow, with families finding good-paying jobs right here in Red Wing and children making Red Wing a place to call home for a lifetime.

Tell voters something about yourself outside of politics.

I toured Europe by train a couple of times, England, France, Germany, Italy...what beautiful countries! And the churches and museums were historic and extraordinarily beautiful!!! The first time was with my wife, we travelled without planning...struggling to reserve hotels "in country" without knowing the language. How exciting it is to be young and adventurous traversing a foreign land. The second time, we took our twin daughters in their senior high school year, as a reward for keeping their noses to the grindstone. To see our daughters take on that excitement that we had when we were young, Madeleine experiencing everything through a camera lens, Marcella, in Parisian fashion, enjoying every cafe or coffee on the veranda like that was the essence of living. Life is to be experienced, life's experiences are forever and an everlasting memory.