My Story

Small Town Values

I grew up just an hour and forty-five minutes from New Harmony in Toledo, Illinois. Toledo was the county seat of Cumberland County and had (and still has) a population of just over a thousand people. I grew up “in the country” about a mile west of Toledo so I am about as small-town born and raised as one can get. 

Aside from New Harmony’s abundant history, New Harmony feels very much like where I grew up. My father was the third of three sons (two sisters), so the farm had been divided amongst the older siblings and after two years serving during the Korean War, he came home and became a plumber and HVAC business owner on Toledo’s courthouse square. Prior to that, he served as superintendent of the town’s water department. Later, he would serve as County Commissioner.

Mom spent one year at college before Dad came home. They married and she was a homemaker and ran the book side of Dad’s business for years. I was the younger between my sister and me. Mom and Dad are gone now but like most of us, I will never rid myself of the small town values of hard work, honesty, and Christian values they instilled in me at an early age. Dad’s favorite saying was, “If something is worth doing, it is worth doing right!” Mom’s favorite saying was probably, “You need to get ready to go to church.” Parental words of wisdom are not something you seem to pay much attention to until they are gone . . .

I was the first of only a handful of cousins and relatives that went off to college. I spent two years at our local Community College before transferring to Southern Illinois University at Carbondale where I graduated with a degree in Ag Economics. That degree in Economics shaped the way I look at things. You have to be able to make the books balance, or you have a problem.

I started my work career with Consolidated Grain and Barge in Naples, IL (pop. 55) as a grain merchandiser. After three months, I was transferred to Cincinnati, OH where CGB operated a grain and barge operation. I spent about a year dispatching tow-boats and barges on the Ohio River and trucks in our trucking division. Both were a great experience; I learned a lot about industries I was not used to before I moved back to the grain division.

That appointment transferred me to Wheelersburg, OH where I managed a barge loading operation for three years. More importantly, it was the hometown of my wife Lynn. We met and married when she was just entering graduate school at Miami University in Oxford OH. We have been married for 37 wonderful years.

CGB took me to corporate headquarters in St. Louis and then to New Orleans, LA. I was Human Resource Director for CGB while the company grew from about 400 to 800 employees. It was a great experience handling employee benefits, payroll, recruitment, and the like. Not to mention the experience of living in Cincinnati, St. Louis, and New Orleans. My small town roots adjusted to living in large cities. It wasn’t easy, but eventually you learn to appreciate different cultures, people, climates, and situations that challenge you. You make mistakes, you adjust, and you learn from being in different places than where you grew up.

Finally, in 1997, CGB began a new division of the company called Diversified Services and our family moved to Posey County. By now we had three kids in tow and moving here felt like settling in to a place much like where we had both grown up.

I retired seven years ago after serving as Senior Vice President for CGB. That role required frequent trips to Japan and Europe on business. In addition, I was President of CGB’s Diversified Services division that had grown from 1 employee (me) to about 800 employees by the time I left the company. It was a great career covering lots of challenges both professionally and personally. You learn a lot about people, about finance, about getting things done when you are in a position that I ended up in. I believe they are experiences that translate well in my role as Council member today.

Lynn and I fell in love with New Harmony shortly after we moved to the area. We eventually bought a house in New Harmony 13 years ago and Lynn established her business Lowry Hollow three years later. Three years ago, we sold our family home in Mt Vernon and moved here full time.

Our roots are deep in the community. Lynn was president of the business association for three years. I have served on the Historic New Harmony Advisory Council, I am the current chair of the New Harmony and Wabash River Bridge Authority, and I was named to fill Gary Watson’s position on Town Council. I serve as a tour guide for visitors to our town and have enjoyed my time on Council. We both feel like a community is only as strong as everyone’s commitment to making it so.