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Father, grandfather and retired senior executive Randy Hutchings is hoping to win the Ward 1 seat next month in the Bradford West Gwillimbury Municipal election.
Hutchings is retired but works as a consultant on the side to keep himself busy. One of the advantages he says about being retired is that he has the time to give to the councillor position.
"It's a full-time gig for me and I'm accessible," he said. "Because of my professional life and career, I didn't have time to give back, and now I can."
Hutchings grew up in Saskatchewan, his father was a retailer and his mom was a stay-at-home mom. He moved to Scarborough, Ontario when he was 12 years old and moved to Bradford with his high school sweetheart/wife Karen in 1984 and have two children together.
"Bradford is home, it's always been home," he said.
With his daughter, son-in-law and two grandkids living around the corner, he wants to ensure a better life for the next generation of Bradford and believes his experience and expertise can help him do that.
At a young age, he started working at a large North American retailer cleaning washrooms and collecting carts before working his way up the corporate ladder, eventually taking on positions in multiple departments including human resources, procurement, strategic planning, financial management, marketing and global operations.
"I like operations, I am a little nerdy that way," he said. "I like strategy, framework, structure."
He has proven senior leadership in both the profit and not-for-profit sectors, leading groups of diverse teams.
"It's an interesting journey growing up in the prairies, moving to Alberta, spending time in BC, even going to Japan, and all that diversity and culture that I got to experience first hand," he said.
Because he got married and started working almost right out of high school, a formal education came to him later in life through an opportunity with his company, spending one year at Harvard for their leadership program.
"It was really interesting," he said.
As senior vice president of operations, he was in line to be the company's CEO but decided to step away from his 30+ year career to retire and focus more on his family. At the time his daughter was getting married, his parents were ailing, and he was looking for something better suited to his lifestyle. That's when he met the politician and CEO of Prostate Cancer Canada Rocco Rossi and started working for him with the charity as VP of Philanthropy, Marketing and Communications.
"I was very proud of the campaigns and things we did, we tripled our donations and created a couple of signature events that still run today," he said. "We did a lot of good."
Hutchings can usually be found every morning walking the streets of Ward 1 with his two Australian Sheppards, Jax and Lily, which is how he has gotten to know many of the residents in the ward and their concerns.
"I am one of these guys, I talk, I'm social, I am community-driven," he said.
From his conversations with residents and his own observations, Hutchings has developed the three key focus points of his campaign: pandemic recovery, economic sustainability, and efficient delivery of municipal services.
Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hutchings says the town needs to look at recovery, and do its best not to raise taxes.
"We can't ask people for more in a time when our affordability is so difficult," he said.
With his experience and knowledge, he believes he has the tools necessary in order to steer the town in the right direction in terms of pandemic recovery and smart growth.
"I have been in that role where every dollar matters," he said. "We are going to go through rapid growth, and we are going to have issues around infrastructure...these next two years of recovery and 10 years of growth are going to be more difficult than anything Bradford has ever seen...and quite frankly I don't think you could do it (be a councillor) on a part-time basis."
To learn more about Hutchings and his campaign, visit his website here.
Election day is Oct. 24.
