UWRF alumnus runs for Wisconsin governor

UW- River Falls alumnus Mark Neumann is running for governor of Wisconsin on the Republican ticket.

Neumann got his masters degree in supervision/instructional leadership at UWRF in 1977 after getting his bachelor’s degree in math education at UW-Whitewater in 1975.

“I’ve been watching the nation and state in trouble from both an economic and political standpoint, and I don’t want my three grandchildren to have to have to deal with these problems,” Neumann said.

Two of Neumann’s main focuses are creating jobs and ensuring the best education possible, according to his campaign Web site.

The Neumann administration will focus on reducing the tax rate in Wisconsin significantly, assuring that Wisconsin children are the best educated in the world, creating the best educated work force in the world, and working to preserve the environment in ways that are not punitive toward businesses, according to his campaign Web site.

The site also mentions that Neumann’s plan for education is to create an education environment that ensures Wisconsin has the best-educated young people in the world.

The idea is that creating a better education system will also create more jobs.

“My first job was teaching at the River Falls High School. My wife worked at the hospital there, and we had our first child there. River Falls is a very important part of our life,” Neumann said.

After teaching mathematics for four years at the high school level Neumann and his wife Sue started their business in the basement of their own home, selling real estate. In 1986, they started building homes in the Janesville/Milton, Wisc., area.

Four years later, after nearly failing in the first year, the company had grown to producing 120 homes per year, providing job opportunities for over 240 families in southern Wisconsin.

Over the years, Mark’s companies received numerous awards for being some of the fastest growing in America such as Inc.

Magazine, Fastest Growing Companies in America, Entrepreneur Magazine, Hot 100 Companies in America, and Future 50 Award, among others.

“I took some classes at Madison after graduating from River Falls and was really intimidated, but found out that the classes weren’t any harder than the ones I took at River Falls,” Neumann said.

“The quality of education at River Falls was excellent.”

He is also concerned with fixing the healthcare system. The solutions will be private sector ideas applied on a larger scale to improve the healthcare system for everyone in Wisconsin, according to his Web site.

“The solutions will simultaneously save the taxpayers of our state a significant amount of money.

Fixing our healthcare system is not just an issue in Wisconsin, and the actions of the federal government will impact how our state can effectively deal with the problem.

As the campaign progresses, there will be more information on this important issue,” according to the Web site.

“My generation had the opportunity to strive for the American dream,” Neumann said. “I want to make sure that younger generations can achieve that too.”

Neumann believes that students that are looking for jobs after college have to work very hard to stand out and find jobs.

“Fill out hundreds of applications, work hard and search for all of your options,” Neumann said. “The people who work the hardest will succeed.”