9/12 Candidate: Paul Mitchell | IL General Assembly 62nd District
Posted by Jacob Roecker on August 21, 2009 under 9/12 Candidates | 
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About Paul (from paulfor62.com):
Who is this guy?
Whenever I hear about a new political candidate, my first reaction is usually along the lines of, “I’ve never heard of him. Who is he?” The short answer is, I’m nobody special. I’m just someone who doesn’t like how government is going down in Springfield, and I want to lend a hand to help.
My name is Paul Mitchell, I was born in July of 1962, to Robert & Mary Mitchell. My father was a Senior Master Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, stationed at the time at Lincoln AFB in Lincoln, Nebraska. He spent most of his career, both in the military and after his retirement, as an aircraft mechanic. My mother later became a registered nurse. Before my first birthday, the family moved to Galesburg, Illinois, between Peoria and the Quad Cities.
I remember in the first grade, in 1968, our Weekly Reader featured on its cover the candidates for president. At recess, the kids picked sides for games based on whether they supported the Republican or Democratic candidates. I remember Jim, my best friend, said he was for the Democrat, so I said I was, too. That night, I told my father that I was for the Democrat and he said, “Really? I’m for the Republican.” I’ve been a Republican ever since.
I developed my interest in politics after my brother assigned me a portion of his paper route; we delivered the Galesburg Register Mail. I remember delivering newspapers that covered Vietnam and Watergate, and I’ve paid attention to politics and history ever since.
On the way home from visiting Dad in Galesburg this past Memorial Day weekend, I stopped off with my family and we visited the birthplace of Ronald Reagan in Tampico. I turned 18 in 1980, and cast my first ballot for Ronald Reagan. At the time, I had already committed to join the Air Force myself, and after basic training at Lackland AFB in Texas, I was sent to the Defense Language Institute to study Russian for 52 weeks, and was thereafter assigned as a Russian Linguist and signals intelligence analyst to the 6912th Electronic Security Group in West Berlin, where I served until late 1985. President Reagan is rightly honored for his success in winning the Cold War; I was on the front lines of the Cold War. I earned the Army of Occupation Medal, Air Force Good Conduct Medal, Air Force Achievement Medal, earned an Associate of Applied Science degree in Interpreting and Translating, and was honorably discharged with the rank of Staff Sergeant.
After the Air Force I moved to Texas and held jobs in real estate and banking but eventually became a fulltime college student at the University of Texas at Arlington, where I earned a BA in Economics with a minor in History. I served in the Student Congress, was president of the campus chapter of the National Association of Business Economists, was a charter member of the Conservative Students’ Association, was admitted to Omicron Delta Epsilon, the Honor Society for Economics, to Phi Alpha Theta, the History Honor Society, and to the Gold Key National Honor Society.
For the last eleven years I’ve worked in the computer industry doing tech support and database development in FileMaker Pro, and it’s in this role that I was able to return to Illinois in 2002. I’ve learned a great deal about how businesses run as I’ve helped people grow their businesses by helping them manage their data; this isn’t called “the information age” for nothing.
As a hobby, I blog about topics that interest me at Thoughts of a Regular Guy.
I am devoutly Roman Catholic, and I am the charter Grand Knight of Knights of Columbus council #14819. I have been married for fourteen years to my wife Karie, and we have four beautiful children, Robert, 7, Mary, 5, John Paul, 3, and Michael, five months. My oldest son, Christopher, is 20 and lives in Texas.
More Information
Contract || paulfor62.com || twitter || FaceBook
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