My name is Sam Schill. My wife Jennifer and I have been married for 13 years and we’ve lived our entire married lives in Ames. We have three children whom are all in school at Fellows Elementary, Kindergarten, second grade and fourth grade.

Through our time in Ames, I’ve served on the Library Board, helped spark the start of the Ames Downtown Farmers Market, worked 10 years at Sigler Companies and most recently was on the founding team at Tourney Machine, which we sold to Sport Illustrated/Time Inc in April of 2016.

Jenny, while staying home with our kids, has served on many PTO’s, works part time for DHS and now recently was appointed to serve on the ASSET board. As a family, our desire is not just to live in Ames, but to be actively seeking the welfare of the community. When John Haila sat down earlier this year and told me that many community leaders had approached him about being mayor, I immediately got excited and also recommended that he run.

As way of background, I’ve known John [Haila], and his wife Mary [Haila], for over a decade. Over that time I’ve had many one on one meetings with John. I’ve come to him with questions about marriage, raising kids and business and community projects I’ve been involved with for guidance. Whether it was weighing the pros and cons of leaving my job to start a business, guidance on how to handle an unruly child (you know who you are!) or very personal questions about marital struggles, John [Haila] listened and asked me really good (and sometimes hard) questions to help get to the heart of issue. For me, it’s invaluable to have someone in your life who can challenge you in just the right way to make you a better person, better husband, better dad, better business person and better community member.

As I look forward to the next decade in Ames, I see a lot of situations where we’ll all need someone doing for our community what John has done for me. Please join Jenny and me and cast your vote for John Haila for mayor on Nov. 7.