Andy McKenna is the only major candidate running for governor who has not spent most of his adult life in politics. As a conservative businessman, he has spent his life meeting payrolls while balancing and living within budgets.

As governor, Andy won't be a part of the political gamesmanship that's taken over Springfield; he'll get right to the core of our state's problems.

Andy is a fiscal conservative and will veto any spending that puts our budget out of balance. He knows higher taxes won't solve our problems, but that cutting spending will.

He'll hold the line on taxes, cut red tape and fight frivolous lawsuits while stimulating jobs and business activity in Illinois.

Andy will bring accountability and innovation to our public schools by empowering parents with more charter school options, rewarding good teachers and weeding out the bad. He'll take on the unions and school bureaucracy that have resisted necessary change.

A native Illinoisan, Andy McKenna has demonstrated a calm determination to succeed in everything he does.

As President of Schwarz Supply Source, he helped steer this 100 -year-old family business from a regional company with 30 employees to a global competitor employing more than 300.

Active in the community, he was founding co-chairman of the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center, a private effort that helped start several small businesses and created over 2,000 jobs. Andy is also the founding co-chair of Rebuilding Together in addition to serving on the Board of Trustees for Rush University Medical Center and serving as a Director of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

In 2005, Andy was elected Chairman of the Illinois Republican Party. During his four-year tenure, he raised nearly $17 million, implemented a program of investing in local races throughout the state, and supported the elections of Peter Roskam, Mark Kirk, and Aaron Schock.

Andy is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He has been married to his wife, Mary, for 29 years, and they have raised four children. Mary is a longtime schoolteacher, and two of their children have followed her into that profession.