Profile in Politics - Steve Ivester

Family: My wife Judy Lavin Ivester and I have lived and/or worked in Hickory since about 1980. Judy ,now retired, is active in the community on a number of boards. We have both acted as General Manager of Hickory companies or business units. For a number of years Judy was General Manager of Siemens Optical Test Equipment here in Hickory. From there she moved to Vice President Marketing and Business Development for a major Siemens division. She holds BA, MA and MBA degrees. Both of my parents, now deceased, were well known in Burke County. My father was Cabinet Room Foreman at Drexel and then owned Lloyd Ivester Custom Frames. My mother was Chief Designer at Shadowline in Morganton and active in many civic and art organizations.

Education: I graduated from Morganton High School in 1961. I was marching band Drum Major my Junior and Senior years. I was the first AFS Summer Abroad Student from Morganton. I traveled to Berlin Germany, before the Wall, and lived with a German family. I graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1965 with a BS in Mechanical Engineering. I took leave from a draft deferred job and volunteered-for/served three years of active duty as a US Coast Guard Officer (I continued on call-up reserve for seven plus additional years). Later I used my Veteran’s Benefits to earn a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from Harvard Business School in 1979. I am a firm believer in life-long education and have taken many additional courses on varied topics. I am a licensed Professional Engineer in NC and an Instrument rated pilot with over 3,500 logged hours.

Occupation: I have worked as a Product Development Engineer (10 patents), Corporate Chief Engineer, Marketing Manager, Business Planner, Consultant and Owner/General Manager. In high school I worked afternoons, Saturdays and summers as a Printer’s Devil. I worked each College summer in the area of Engineering/Science. I owned and operated Dennison Precision Machine here in Hickory. We were a prime contractor to the US Military. Among our products were precision measuring machines for ordinance. We had a military approved quality program, a state metalworking apprentice program, an employee health plan and a 401K retirement plan. In addition to making the payroll I had ultimate responsibility for all of those programs. I have been active in helping entrepreneurial businesses get started. I am now retired from business but for the past fifteen months I have been working full time on my run for this NC Tenth District, US Congress House Seat. My Campaign has its headquarters in the 1400 block of South Sterling Street in Morganton.

Elected Positions Held: I have held many officer and board positions in civic and art organizations, but have never held governmental office. Except for my Military service I have never worked for government at any level.

Notable information: I ran for Hickory City Council in 2004. I attended most Council and Planning Commission meetings from 2003 until the start of this candidacy in early 2007. I have been active with Water Watch Lake Hickory, the Upper Catawba Valley Conservation Forum in Lenoir-Rhyne’s Reese Institute, and have worked with number of conservation and government functions during the recent Inter-Basin Transfer repeal effort. I was appointed by City Council to the Hickory Airport Task Force which gave its final report in 2006. In the flight centennial years I created and gave a early aviation slide program to over thirty school and civic groups. In recent years I have also prepared and given lectures on the “Threat of Social Security Privatization” among other topics. I am a member of the First Methodist Church in Morganton, but during the past fifteen months have tried to visit a different church each Sunday. As I said above, I served three years of active and an additional seven plus call up reserve years in the Military.

For more information: Please visit my website at www.steveivester.com or call us at 358-4579. Please stop by my Morganton headquarters.

Why are you running? I am running because I believe I can do a good job in a difficult time. I am running because I have the training, and experience to bring new ideas to solving our nation’s problems. I am running because we need people in Washington with backgrounds in Science and Manufacturing. We have seen that legal and political science backgrounds take us down the same old paths (does the housing crisis of today look like the Savings and Loan crisis of yesterday - the same people are profiting from other’s distress). Finally, I am running because I enjoy listening to people and trying to help them solve problems.

What qualities make you the best candidate? I understand that new policy creation is difficult, often follows a convoluted path, but must be started. I am not invested in or beholding to any special interest or professional group. I am a fiscal conservative but a social moderate. I understand the impact on our nation’s future of our growing deficit, low personal savings rate and poor balance of trade. I have traveled throughout the world. I have read extensively in economics, foreign affairs and military history. I have lived in a city like Washington. I have firm roots in three of the ten counties of the district. I know our farms, factories, mountains, streams and people.

What is the biggest issue facing the district? What would you do to address it? Over development and underemployment are our biggest issues. This administration has allowed financial institutions to overheat the construction industry in an attempt to maintain employment levels in the face of international outsourcing of our strategic industries. This, along with poor trade negotiation/management has denied necessary Capital from real, value added, job creation. Construction is a service industry. If we are going to continue to buy internationally we must have value added products to sell internationally or risk going broke. The Foresight Study done by Catawba County is a good start to at least finding a direction. We lost our way company by closed company. We must find our way out working together as a region.

Where do you see the district in 10 years and how will you help the district get there? I see young people growing up here, getting world class training here and deciding to remain here to work and raise their families. I see us reducing the school dropout rate, incarceration rate and property crime rate dramatically. I see us sustaining old and establishing new institutions of learning and culture that all will be proud of. I see the continued evolution of our unique culture ranging from music to NASCAR. I see people of ideas and vision having access to the resources to bring their dreams to life in the interest of all. I see us being open to new ideas without feeling that our culture is somehow threatened. I will be here listening to and working with you to bring Federal resources to bear on our goals.

What is your stance on illegal immigration? What steps would you take to address it? I do not believe any foreign national should be in our country without tracking and documentation. If farms and industry need guest workers we should have programs to provide them in an orderly way. Our employment laws should be well thought out and consistently enforced. Right now illegal immigrants have a lower status and less protection than slaves or serfs. We are a better nation. Realistically we cannot just throw twelve million people out of our country. We need to provide safe ways (safe for them and safe for our economy) to bring non-citizens under the law and get most of them eventually back to their home country. I think fences are fine but that control of demand will have more impact.

Gas prices continue to be a growing burden to Americans. What is your solution? Smaller cars, more efficient cars, less commuting, more public transportation. We have known the answer for decades. There has just not been the will or the leadership to make it happen. Now that we must, we find the critical technologies dominated by other nations who accepted the inevitable and invested in wind, solar, hybrid, advanced fission, and fusion. I do not see additional oil drilling as part of the answer (We need something more than a few extra years of supply!). I do see additional refinery capacity needed and soon. As we decommission hundreds of nuclear weapons we are freeing up fuel that could make a real change in our oil use and our carbon footprint. I think we are missing a historic opportunity to turn swords into plowshares right now. By going away from nuclear power we thought we could control weapon proliferation, now we see that did not work or is no longer working. And, right now nuclear waste may be less of a threat than carbon dioxide. Petroleum fuel price/cost controls (or the bully pulpit equivalent) are needed in the short term. It does not cost any more to refine/distribute $100/barrel oil than it does $30.00/barrel oil. As a nation we must re-investment in energy research of all types. Finally we must stabilize our dollar, which is one of the major contributors to rising fuel prices.