This Q&A is a part of Central Times’ 2025 city council election coverage. To see interviews with all candidates in the race, click here. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What inspired you to run for Naperville City Council?
I am running for re-election to the city council. I think leadership is about giving people something to believe in that’s bigger than themselves, and I believe in Naperville, so I’ve been serving for a long time. I graduated from Naperville North, left the area, went to college and law school, served in the Air Force for seven years, came back. I’m a small business owner here. I chaired the 1100-member Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce and served on boards of various nonprofits, including NCTV, Naperville-sponsored veterans. In my first term on city council, I was really proud to have supported housing for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the extension of the Naperville Riverwalk to the Edward Hospital campus, which should be happening in about a year, and the removal of lead service lines so that people have clean drinking water in our community. I think there’s a lot of work still to do. We’re constantly ranked as the best community in America, and that doesn’t happen by mistake. It happens by a lot of thoughtful, conscious leadership, doing our homework, and just making sure we always have the community’s interest first.
Can you tell me more about your personal and professional background and how that prepares you for this role?
Yeah, sure. So I already mentioned a few things, like service in the Air Force and time at the Chamber of Commerce. I’ll specifically focus on that Chamber of Commerce and business owner experience. I think it is really helpful when you’re voting on policies that are going to really, really affect those small businesses, like Anderson’s Bookstore, Oswald’s Pharmacy, to kind of know what their lives are like, right? To actually have to make payroll, to actually have to worry about the taxes your business pays and things like that. So I think that’s been one of the most useful experiences that I’ve had, and just all the other boards I’ve served on — talking about how to keep things within budget, how to treat people respectfully — all those kinds of things.
How long have you lived in Naperville? And what do you love most about the community?
So I was born and raised in Naperville. I left the area for college, law school, and the Air Force, but I’ve been back since 2014. The best thing I love about the community is actually the people here and the sense of involvement and volunteerism. You know, growing up as a kid in Naperville, I didn’t maybe appreciate it as much as I should have. But all of those things that the home and school parents did, all the Little League coaches that we have here, the resources at Centennial Beach — best in the country. Library systems — none of those things happen by accident. It takes a lot of volunteers, and people are working really hard, including students, you know, like Central Times, right? Like, the nation’s best high school newspaper takes people like you doing your job to make that happen. So it’s really the people that make Naperville special.
What life experiences have shaped your perspective on local government and public service?
I think some of the biggest experiences have actually just been the experiences of ordinary, everyday life for me, right? So those experiences as a business owner — thinking about, okay, how do I pay my employees on time? How do I make sure that we are taking care of people, right? How, as a parent, am I making sure that I keep my kids safe? How am I making sure that we manage our own financial stress? Those are all skills that are applicable as a city council member. And just having a common-sense approach to all those things.
What unique skills or insights would you bring to the city council?
Well, one of them is as an incumbent city council member, I have the experience of having passed four budgets, all over a half billion dollars. So I know a lot of the questions to ask. I know a lot of the friction points, the difficult areas that are consistently a challenge for our city. I also think that I bring the experience of having run an 1100-business organization, running my own business, and being a parent of four kids. I think all those are valuable things for a city council member.
What particular issues are you focusing on right now? What’s most important to you that you want to improve in the next few years in Naperville?
I mean, I’m sure you’ve heard we have a multi-billion-dollar energy contract that we have to decide on. And really, to put it bluntly, the decision is whether we want to continue in coal or other forms of energy. I think there are better economic choices, and there are certainly better environmental choices than that. So that’s a very high priority for me.
You’ve been involved in expanding the Naperville Riverwalk. Do you have any other improvements in mind or developments that you would like to see along the Riverwalk or other city parks in the future?
Yeah, one of them is actually happening right now, and it’s something that I secured $800,000 in federal funds for. We’re very proud of that. It’s the creation of what’s called Hill Street Gateway. You can see it under construction right now, at the corner of Jackson, near Naperville Central. That part of the Riverwalk is currently not ADA accessible. It’s not accessible to people with strollers, and it will be as soon as that project is complete. So I’m very proud of that.
What do you see as the most significant challenges facing Naperville, and how would you address them in your second term?
The Naperville that I grew up in is very different than the Naperville that we’re in now. When I was growing up, this was a community of 40,000–50,000 people. Every year we were adding five new subdivisions, and every time we had a developer come in, we’d make them put in stoplights, we’d make them build a school as a condition of them coming in. Well, all of that stuff is getting old now, and there aren’t enough new developers coming in to fix it all. That means a lot of what we do now isn’t as exciting. You know, it’s a $150 million upgrade to the sewage treatment plant, which hopefully you’ll never even know happened — a ton of money, but still really important. So a lot of it is actually just a matter of communication and public education. Here are these projects, and yes, they are expensive, and yes, you are having to fund them. Here’s the environmental impact this project is going to have. Here’s why, if we let this infrastructure crumble, our community is no longer going to be the best in America. So the challenge is education and communication, which I think is key for leaders.