Training and Experience
2023-present: Certified Student Affairs Educator; 2016-present: Director of Pharmacy Student Affairs, Ohio Northern University (Ada, OH); 2014-2016: Associate Director of Residence Life, Southern Connecticut State University (New Haven, CT); 2005-2010: Assistant Director of Residence Life, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (Edwardsville, IL); 2001-2005: Hall Director, Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, OH)
Volunteer/Community Service
2023-present: Ada Rotary; 2006-2010: Edwardsville/Glen Carbon Junior Service Club
As your representative, I will fight to ensure accessible and affordable healthcare, invest public money into all levels of public education, and support our local businesses and family farms. Personal experience tells me that our healthcare system is slowly becoming less accessible to those who need it. I am a product of quality public education, at all levels, and want public education and training for all Ohioans. I grew up surrounded by the beauty of the farmlands and know that agriculture shaped our district. I will seek guidance from senior general assembly members and work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to write legislation that will protect healthcare, public education, and local agriculture and industry in the 83rd.
Every Ohioan who is of age to vote should be able to do so. Policies like having only one ballot dropbox per county, which inconveniences rural voters, and disallowing same day registration unnecessarily limit access to voting without improving security. Currently, voting precinct managers must be members of the party which in that county received the largest percentage of votes in the most recent governor's election. This policy limits each Board of Election's ability to place the best people for that position in each precinct. I support revising the policy to allow members of either party to serve as precinct managers by alternating the party, similar to how the director of each Board of Elections alternates.
Offering tax breaks to companies and legislating sensible regulations are a necessary but insufficient first step. Businesses are made up of people; industries develop and thrive where people thrive. Employers need an educated and well-trained workforce. A business that sets down roots in a community wants a responsive local government. Employers desire quality healthcare for their employees. They need to be able to recruit and maintain the most qualified workforce and to know that their employees will not face discrimination. Finally, a modern workforce demands a clean, healthy, and engaging environment in which to live. State laws and policies should strengthen Ohio in all these areas to better expand job opportunities in Ohio.
The state should reinvest public funds in all levels of public education and vocational training. We must fully support the development of public schools by providing living wages to our teachers. As your legislator, I will listen to the experts in education about what is best for our students instead of expecting teachers to teach to a test. If the state allows our teachers to do what they learned to do, then we can expect great things. In the 90s, I graduated from a small, country, northwest Ohio public high school, confident that I received a quality education. Now I am confident that, with proper investment and support for educational professionals, students in OH-83 can be certain they are graduating with a top-notch education.
I see the state's role with local government as similar to that of a higher education accrediting body, with one difference: the state should provide financial support to the local government. Like an accrediting body, the state should have specific requirements that each local government should meet and specify both a minimum and an exceptional level. These levels would encourage local governments to reach and exceed minimum expectations. If a local government is struggling to meet a requirement, then a state department should assist that local government to do so. If a local government exceeds state standards, then the state should not penalize them for enacting more stringent standards.
Healthcare is a human right. Everyone should have access to preventative, diagnostic, and medical care at a cost that will not impoverish them. An Ohioan should not have to decide between food or medicine, housing or seeing a doctor. The mindset that healthcare for all is not possible is not helpful. Our state would benefit from a healthy population. Healthy students learn better, healthy workers work harder, a healthy state is more attractive to all. Our profit-driven healthcare system is broken; insurance companies should not dictate what tests to get, which doctors to see, etc. As your representative I will work for legislative solutions to ensure that healthcare professionals are the ones making such decisions.
Ohio must invest in wind and solar energy, two energy sources that will always be available. Our state should offer incentives to the fossil-fuel industries to encourage them to shift to the generation of cleaner energy. As your legislator, I will support state-sponsored retraining for those who have worked in fossil fuel to prepare them for jobs in solar and wind. These efforts should be located in the communities that would otherwise be devastated by the loss of fossil-fuel jobs. This way, Ohioans are not required to pull up roots to move elsewhere. Additionally, I would sponsor legislation to ensure that the energy generated would power Ohio first before being shipped out-of-state.
The government should make non-discrimination a top priority; this is both a moral and an economic imperative. The general assembly should review all laws and policies to make sure that they permit no discrimination in areas such as employment, housing, education, healthcare, public service, etc. Laws and policies that discriminate or permit discrimination are harmful: they prevent our fellow Ohioans from freely and fully living their lives, and they discourage businesses from coming to the state. Younger Ohioans who are more welcoming of all will take their talents and energy elsewhere. Companies that value inclusive communities will steer clear of Ohio and choose to develop roots in other states that welcome all their workforce.
