I am an AMERICAN veteran running for Congress to solve an AMERICAN problem.
I want what is best for the 80% of AMERICANS in the middle; not the extreme left or the extreme right. I’m running as a Democrat because local laws in Ohio make running as an independent much more difficult. I’m not a liberal because I will only support programs that work. I’m not a conservative because I won’t resist a program that will work just because it’s new. I’m committed to working with the facts.
I grew up hunting and fishing with my Grandfather and my Dad. My favorite gun was a Martin .22/410 over-and-under. It was a single shot sort of. You could take one shot with the .22 and then push a knob to take a shot with the 410. We didn’t waste ammo. In Wisconsin, it is illegal to hunt with a weapon that is capable of firing more than one shot without reloading. If you had a pump shotgun, you were required to load dummy shells so that you could only take one shot before you had to reload. I belong to the NRA but I, like 80% of AMERICANS want common sense gun control. Nobody really needs an automatic or semi-automatic long gun. I qualified as an expert with an M-16 but it’s not legal for hunting and even if it was, the meat you would harvest would be torn to shreds. Those weapons are designed for one thing and that’s killing a lot of humans in a short period of time. I want to do everything we can to keep guns from drug dealers, terrorists, felons, murderers, rapists, domestic abusers and stupid people. That’s just common sense. Some guys buy guns like toys. Guns are not toys. They are tools to be respected. If you are saying you’re a responsible gun owner but you don’t have a gun safe or trigger locks, quit saying you’re a responsible gun owner.
I’ve been a working man all my life. I have held many jobs in my life. That’s not because I’m a job hopper but because I have always held two or three jobs at a time. That’s what my father did because he had five children and one of them had expensive requirements. I grew up in a town of 8,000 people where my Dad worked in a paper mill. My youngest brother was born with multiple handicaps probably due to anoxia during the birth process. He has Cerebral Palsy, seizures and profound mental retardation. We’ve been told that he has a mental age of a one-year-old, but he has never learned to talk and didn’t walk until he was nine. My mother took on the responsibility for his care. It was a round-the-clock commitment. When he turned 21, he moved to a group home with three other handicapped children. The group home has a staff that works eight-hour shifts around the clock doing the work my mother did alone for 21 years.
I had a paper route and worked as a janitor cleaning toilets at a tractor factory. I completed my senior year of high school while working the 3 to 11 shift at an iron foundry where I was a member of the International Molders and Foundry Workers Union of North America. After graduation, I worked at a cutting-edge dairy operation turning dairy whey (which used to be a waste product) into edible, dried dairy whey. During this time, I loaded railroad boxcars with 100-pound bags of dried dairy whey in rows three bags wide and eight bags high. I was a member of the Teamsters Union. My draft number was 8. Not even double digits. So, in January of my draft year, I was invited by President Nixon to join the United States Army. I was very lucky to be assigned to work at an Army Hospital where they were more than happy to let me work in other specialties when my work was done on my primary assignment. I worked all over the hospital and even became a dental assistant. I was promoted five times in 18 months and awarded the Army Commendation Medal. After two years of active duty, I finished my six-year obligation working in VA hospitals.
I was accepted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (not OSU but still Big Ten) in the pre-med program hoping to go to medical school after getting my B.S. I worked from midnight to 8 am sorting mail at the big Post Office Facility in Madison. I had many interests in college, chemistry, physics and started majoring in math. I graduated with a B.S. in Psychology. There were 5,000 applicants for the 200 seats in the UW Medical School. With a 3.75 GPA, I was not given one of those seats. From there I went on to earn a Master’s Degree in Special Education. Probably with some sense that I should do something to help kids like my brother. I am certified to teach Learning Disabled (LD) and Emotionally Disturbed (ED) students from kindergarten through 12th grade. I taught for five years including junior high emotionally disturbed kids. I was a member of the Teacher’s Union. Teachers need a couple of part-time jobs. So, I taught college courses as an adjunct professor, built houses as a general contractor and I sold houses as a Realtor.
I left teaching for the corporate world. I had great sales numbers. I’m a great salesman if I believe I’m selling the very best solution for my customer. I’m a horrible salesman if I think the customer would be better off going to my competition. Within five years I was a regional manager overseeing 1/5th of the country. I moved my family from Oshkosh to Madison to Detroit to Cincinnati to take promotions. My family didn’t want to move again so I became an independent technology consultant. Owning your own business is great because you get to choose which 80 hours a week you work. I attended law school at night while maintaining my business during the day. I graduated from Salmon P. Chase College of Law with a Juris Doctorate. I don’t practice law in the traditional sense but I loved learning about the law and especially the Constitution. I love my job. I love my clients. I would do this job for free if I could find another way to pay the mortgage.
In February of 2017, my oldest son died of an overdose. You can read about that it’s Tim’s Story.