Who he is
A guy who fixes things
for a living.
I’m a hands-on guy, a jack of all trades who’d rather fix a thing than throw it out.
The first time I met the mayor of West St. Paul, he was standing on my doorstep asking for my vote, and I told him, right there, that one day I would be running for mayor.
That was 2021, right after we moved out here. And I meant it. I already knew two things: that I was staying, and that this municipality had a problem I couldn’t unsee.
Why we came
We moved out from Winnipeg in November 2021. My work was on the north side and the commute from the south end had stopped making sense, our family was growing, and we wanted a bigger place. West St. Paul gave us the quiet and the open space while still being close to the city. The openness took some getting used to after living in the municipality. Now I wouldn’t trade it.
Hands-on, by habit
I’d rather fix a thing than throw it out. I ride motorcycles. I just finished building a 1953 Ford F100 pickup, start to finish. That’s not a hobby I mention to seem folksy. It’s how I approach everything. You figure out what’s actually wrong, and you do the work.
You don’t fix that with a speech. You fix it the way you fix anything worth keeping.
What I’ve done for a living
I’ve been working in sales at a Freightliner dealership for over eight years. Before that I was an owner-operator with CNTL, a division of Canadian National Railway, and before that I drove transit for a couple of years.
That career has given me experience dealing with people, managing costs, solving problems, and understanding the importance of accountability.
What I couldn’t unsee
West St. Paul grew faster than almost anywhere in the country. And the rinks, the parks, the pools, the schools and the sewers all ran years behind the families who were already here. I’m not against that growth. I came here in it. I’m one of the thousands of families who showed up for the space and the quiet.
What worries me is growth with no plan behind it. And I don’t know that from a report. My daughter was in a combined grade six and seven class. We lost about four years to a childcare waitlist. My son plays hockey and can’t play it here. Those aren’t talking points I picked up. They’re my family’s week.
So here I am
As this election came around, friends started asking whether I was actually going to do it. So that mayor on my doorstep? Turns out I meant it.
I’m not a career politician and I’m not pretending to be. I’m a guy who fixes things for a living and got tired of watching good, fixable problems sit there while the municipality changed around them.
