2CSS202001HD_Candidate_Statement_Transcript
 
- Tom Palzewicz: Hi, I'm Tom Palzewicz, and I'm running as a Democrat in Wisconsin's 5th Congressional District. You know, I grew up in Wisconsin. I lived in Brown Deer for many years. My dad was a foreman at the old A. O. Smith plant. And one of the things that I realized when I was very young is we had a fortunate life. We came from a big family. We had a fortunate life, and we had access to things that I call the American dream. I got a great education. I was able to live a fairly healthy life and, you know, looking back now, I'm very thankful for that and it's part of what I believe what makes Wisconsin great. After high school, I decided to join the Navy. I went to Madison for a couple of years. That didn't work out the way I thought it was going to. And I spent six years in the Navy and I spent four years on a nuclear submarine, and what that really taught me was servant leadership. It's just this idea that we're here to lead not for ourselves, but for others. And the other thing I learned by being on that submarine is: you know, I was on there with 100 other guys, and I didn't necessarily have to like everybody, but what I did do is respect what they did 'cause their life was in my hands, my life was in their hands. And I think that's one of the things that we're missing from Congress today is that level of respect for each other, that it's important for us to respect each other and work together and move forward. So, after the 2016 election, I really looked back at myself, and said, "What do I need to do to create an environment where we're a lot less divisive, where we have better leadership in place, and we keep things moving forward?" One of the things I'm a big fan of is the idea of progress over partisanship. Which is, how do we make things better for everybody on a regular basis by trying and doing things to make things better and bringing people together? And, you know, I get out of the Navy, I came back to Wisconsin because I traveled around the world, lived around the country, and couldn't find a better place to come back to and live. And I got an accounting degree and I went into business and I spent 15 years in banking, working with what I call "my Wisconsin banking tour" by working with the banks to manage risks. So, I ended up working with Wall Street a lot and what that really taught me is how the economy works, the nuts and bolts of an economy. And why that's important to understand is the true wealth that's created in our country is created by when the bottom parts of our economy, the people, the infrastructure, everything else, when those things are working well, everybody benefits. And right now we have too much income inequality and people who are working full time jobs just are struggling to make it. And now with the pandemic, there's a lot more people who are unemployed. And it really taught me that in order for economy to work, it's really about bottom up, not trickle down. And the more we can build the bottom of our economy, the more people, the more working people who have more money for the value of what they provide and have good access to health care, have a great infrastructure, great education, the better off we all are. And then, for the last 15 years, I've owned my own business. It's a business coaching and executive coaching company. I've really helped people understand how they communicate, how they make decisions, how others do it, and the ability to work together 'cause whenever we work together, we create great things. And it's really hard to do, though, because of differences, not only in people, but vision and everything else. And it really taught me that one of the most important things we lack as a country right now is a vision for where we're going. And because we don't have a vision for where we're going, we're stuck in this, I would say, divisiveness and chaos of what's happening today, what's the outrage thing to be outraged about, and it's really hard for us to move forward. So the idea that the 5th Congressional District can be a purple district is something I hold dear because we're all in this together. I've been a business owner in this community for a long time. My wife and I have lived in Brookfield for the last 20 years. There's a key element here that people really care about moving things forward and just stopping the partisanship, and I'm committed to making sure that happens. And one of the reasons that I'm running now-- so I ran in 2018, we ran against Congressman Sensenbrenner-- he's decided to retire after a 42-year career. But this is an open seat. It's time for people to understand that there's a true decision to make. And if you go to our website, it's packed full of all sorts of things that we wanna do once we get to Washington because we'll be in the majority. And if you look at my opponent, there's not much there. He's not really interested in moving to Washington to make sure we can move our country forward. I think he just wants a promotion from the current job that he has. So I'm committed to making that happen. I'm committing to progress over partisanship 'cause it's about people first and the more we have for people, the better off we all are. So I'm Tom Palzewicz, running in the 5th Congressional District. I'd appreciate your vote. Thank you.