Get to Know Jamie

Growing up in rural Wisconsin, I enjoyed being involved in community service - a scout, an altar boy, and a volunteer at our parish – often helping with neighborhood and church activities.  I attended high school in 1981 and 1982 at Holy Name Seminary in Madison, Wisconsin, and there encountered many people of faith who encouraged having a positive impact on the community.  Those early days influenced my decision to later run for public office.  

As an Irish Catholic, the University of Notre Dame was a natural choice where I studied Accounting and graduated summa cum laude as the top business school graduate.  After passing the CPA exam, I landed my first ‘real job’ as a CPA with Crowe in South Bend. This accounting background and work experience has served me well in life and will be particularly useful for the County Council which has authority over County government finances. 

One month after graduation, I married Amy at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame.  We met and fell in love as undergraduates, and so began my amazing life as a husband and father.  After 37 years of marriage, Amy and I have been blessed with four children who are now adults – our two sons choosing to remain in our local community and our two daughters moving out of state to pursue their vocations.  I also have two grandchildren with a third on the way.  As a 28 year resident of Granger and a parishioner at St Pius, it is important to me that our children have opportunities to build their own families in our community as I did. 

I got involved in politics, my third love, as I began my legal career as a way to improve the Granger community for my neighbors and my family.  Since an early age, I was a Republican supporting life, individual liberty, and fiscal responsibility.  I had a great opportunity to be the Treasurer for Chuck Sulok’s state representative race in the 1990s, which led to my eventual involvement in more local races including Chris Chocola, Jackie Walorski, Amy Drake, and Loris Zappia.

In time I ran as a candidate for the St. Joseph County Council, against Dale DeVon. I lost but learned a lot, and we became good friends.  Since then I became one of his biggest fans and supporters.  A decade later, when Dale became a state representative, I won the caucus race to replace him on the Council and also won in the following general election.  Despite Republicans being in the Council minority, I found successes there. This included authoring and securing unanimous support for a Taxpayer Protection and Transparency Ordinance which required vendors and attorneys to provide more transparency with their fees.  Additionally I saved the county a million dollars by identifying an error in a county contract. Separately when the council voted itself a pay raise, I returned my salary portion to the county because I didn’t feel comfortable spending more taxpayer money. 

During this time my elderly parents both became ill, and I needed to spend more time taking care of them.  Unfortunately this meant cutting back on other duties including stepping down from the council.  I often spent 6 to 8 hours a night with my parents, while also caring for my family and working as a professor and lawyer.   While I may take some criticism for this choice, family is just very important to me.  Sadly my parents passed away several years ago.

As the current St Joseph County GOP party vice-chairman, I am ready to continue service to the community and see a need for Granger to have a County representative who listens.  Many neighbors felt unheard when the County Council, including Granger’s current Council representative, voted to allow an industrial data center into a traditionally rural area of our Granger community.