Jake's Bio

Life began for me 30 years ago at St. Luke's Hospital. My parents raised me in Nazareth, and I grew up with my three younger sisters and younger brother. During my youth, I loved reading and played team sports year-round. I attended Nazareth Area High School and graduated third in my class. In high school, I played township baseball, football for a couple years, ran cross-country and was a co-captain of the track and field team. I was also on the chess team and the locally-televised Scholastic Scrimmage teams. Then U.S. Congressman Paul McHale also awarded me a Citizenship Award.

While I was growing up, my mother was a homemaker and a schoolteacher and now teaches adult education at a local university. My father works in a machine shop at a local university. My ethic to work hard and deep sense of responsibility came from watching my parents work so hard and sacrifice so much to put food on the table and obtain a chance for us children at a good education. I attended Lehigh University with a full scholarship and graduated with honors, earning a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering. My education also included a summer at Dortmund University in Germany as an exchange student, and a Martindale scholarship, where I traveled to Hong Kong and wrote a paper on their political system since the British handover to the Chinese.

Since my graduation from college, I worked as a process engineer for Ablestik Laboratories in the semiconductor industry, first in California, then close to four years in Shanghai, China. Most of my work was very hands-on, I spent countless hours scaling up or troubleshooting products with technicians in the labs and with operators on the manufacturing floor. I was also fortunate to spend time with customers, and the main purpose of my job was improving our products and factories for them.

While abroad in China, I experienced how hard life can really be without the liberties that we Americans often take for granted. I began taking a closer look at the news from America and also what my friends were telling me. Slowly, I began to recognize that civil liberties were being infringed upon by the government, and economic liberties were under attack, especially the silent theft of purchasing power from the dollar.

Instead of the one breadwinner household like back in the 1950s and 1960s, why do we now need two incomes to raise a family? Why is health care so expensive? Why are so many jobs fleeing our country for the cheap labor of poor third world countries like China? Why didn't the banks have enough money – didn't they have all the money? How did this economic depression start? Who is responsible? I was shocked to discover that our federal government and the Federal Reserve, our central bank, own most of the blame. I have uncovered enough of the lies that I discovered the truth:

All around my beloved home, peace, freedom, prosperity, and love are under siege.

Their polar opposites – war, slavery, poverty, and hate – are on the march, harshly trampling over our liberties.

All hope for change lies in a rEVOLution fought not with bullets, but with our minds.

Why were we content to sacrifice our liberties through the USA PATRIOT Act among many other acts of Congress? Why are we steadily spreading war and civil strife to Afghanistan, then to Iraq, and now Pakistan? Do we even have a clue when we will “win”? I will be honest with you and say I had accepted the premise that the War on Terror was necessary for about five years. I then realized those who attacked us did not do so because they were jealous of our liberties or our prosperity, they did it because our armies were already over there, occupying their countries. The words of Pennsylvanian Ben Franklin ring harsh and true:

“They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.”

I love meeting new people and seeing new places, and have traveled quite a bit in Asia and Europe. The pleasures of backpacking in Nepal, spending time with tribal villagers on the rain-forested Chinese-Burmese border, and hiking all over New Zealand have changed how I view the world. So has the experience of living in the polluted smog of Shanghai, meeting innocents whose legs were blown off by American-built mines in Cambodia, and living among some of the millions of peasant farmer families in rural China. I've discovered that people everywhere are much the same – they want their children to do well and advance in the world, they care deeply about their culture and standard of living, and are generally good-hearted. I believe these experiences have made me a more well-rounded person, able to shift my perspective and listen and see life from the viewpoint of others.

I loved growing up in a big family and look forward to meeting the right person and starting a family of my own one day. That said, I am in no rush and have chosen to devote my full attention to spreading my message. In March of 2009, I returned home to pursue this campaign full-time. On Mayday 2009, I declared my candidacy for my home district's seat for the election on November 2, 2010. As you can see below, this campaign will not be 'politics as usual.'

• I am running as a private citizen, not with either major party – As I am highly critical of how both Republican and Democratic politicians have behaved over the past decade, I cannot associate myself as a candidate with either party. I will be running as an independent private citizen under no political party. What I offer to the citizens of the 15th district is a true independent ear and voice. Whatever your age, gender, political party, or beliefs, we are all citizens and a better country for ourselves and our children's children is in our best interests. As I once learned, the very terms "conservative" and "liberal" are just forms of verbal warfare meant to divide us.
• I will focus on spreading my message, winning votes, and both educating residents as well as being educated BY them – The most important task is meeting people, and listening to their thoughts. The intent of my campaign is to become a Congressman who listens to ideas from both you and everyone to create the best solutions to our economic, social, political, and environmental problems. When elected, I will create an “Open Office” – an on-line forum where anyone can share his or her opinions with me, and makes me accountable to you. This website will serve as a demonstration to prove this Open Office idea is more than possible – it's already being done and your voice matters to me.
• Not a Career Politician – After I am elected, I would listen to your comments on my performance before running again. I harbor no intentions of becoming a "career politician." My aim is to serve as a temporary statesman and bring the voice of the people to government with a lot of energy. I am mindful of the sad truth behind "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." As collateral for this assurance, if elected, I promise I will not enlist in the Congressional pension plan, which guarantees members up to 80% of their salary in annual pension. I believe this is fiscally irresponsible and too lucrative. The current salary paid by you, the taxpayer, for a seat in Congress is $174,000, which is three times our area's median household income. I have announced I will accept only the median household income and will donate the remainder to local non-profit hospitals.  How else could you believe Congress will tighten the purse-strings on wasteful government spending if I fail to start with myself?

I hope to meet you personally as I campaign. I humbly hope that you will find me worthy of your vote, and your vote is cast as an informed decision for the best candidate. I will do my very best to serve you, the people of the Lehigh Valley, the Fighting Fifteenth.

For the Republic!
Jake Towne
June 6, 2009, on the 65th Anniversary of the Normandy Landing