A friend of mine sent me this email. David Rusk is a world class regional planner and has done much work about making cities work. Here is what he has to say about Tom Wolf.
Dear Mr. Gogniat
Over the past two decades I have spoken and presented workshops to thousands of Pennsylvanians in communities covering 80% of Pennsylvania’s population, including very extensive work in Lancaster, York and the Philadelphia region. I have also worked in over 110 metropolitan areas in 35 other states.
Tom Wolf is the finest business and civic leader with whom I have had the good fortune to work anywhere.
In 1996, Tom was the principal leader and financial backer of Better York, who sponsored my major report on the York community popularly called (though not by me) “The Rusk Report.” His leadership and generosity made possible re-issuing that report in 1997 and a major update in 2003. He was a major sponsor of the regional summit at Bryn Mawr College that launched the Southeast Pennsylvania First Suburbs Project in December 2007.
From the outset I have been deeply impressed by Tom’s quick intelligence, his basic decency, his integrity, his readiness to face tough problems “with the bark off,” and his ever-optimistic, innovative, can-do spirit.
These last two qualities have never been better demonstrated than his transforming the Wolf Organization from a distributor of others’ building supply products into a company that designs and sources its own Wolf-brand products right here in America – a transformation that saved hundreds of jobs in the midst of The Great Recession.
Tom has deep local roots; six generations of Wolfs have lived in Mount Wolf borough. Tom thoroughly understands and values Pennsylvania’s traditions. But just as Tom revitalized his 170-year old family-owned company in the face of new challenges, he would bring that ability to the governor’s mansion. He understands that, in the 21st century, Pennsylvania must find new ways for state government, its 67 counties, and 2,562 cities, boroughs and townships to work together in order to build effective public-private partnerships to spur the state’s economic growth.
With such an important decision facing Pennsylvanians on November 4th, I wanted to share my experiences with Tom with you.
If I were a resident of Pennsylvania (and I am not), I would vote for Tom Wolf for governor enthusiastically and without any reservations whatsoever.
How often can we voters say that?
David Rusk