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Last Updated: Jul 26th, 2010 - 10:42:30 |
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| J.R. Claeys |
At the age of 32, a Salina native running for Kansas Secretary of State said his main platform is looking out for small businesses. Despite his relative young age for public office, his professional life has focussed on small business advocacy.
While working as the director of communications for the Washington, D.C.-based National Small Business Association, Kansas State University alumnus J.R. Claeys went to night school to get his master's degree from George Washington University.
"I chose to run because I've been working in nonprofits my whole life, but I've always had the idea that I'd get involved in public service at some point," Claeys said. "I think everybody should, whether it's getting involved in a civic club in your local community or somehow contributing through working with a political party or chamber. I think when you consider public service, you should do something where your talents can really match and you can give back."
For Claey's the Secretary of State's office made sense. He is looking to streamline the heavy paperwork burden small business owners go through when looking to create a business.
"Since I have a background in business, I would be someone who's going to keep paperwork at a minimum and keep paperwork streamlined to stay off the backs of small businesses so they can grow and create jobs," he said.
With layoffs plaguing the states and nation, Claeys said now is the time most individuals are looking to create "mom-and-pop" shops.
"We want to make sure we make it easier for them to start their business and grow their business, I think there's a lot of things the secretary of state can do to accomplish that," he said. "Sometimes there are just regulations out there that you think are fine and we need to make this regulation exist because big businesses are doing something wrong. But then it trickles down and this small mom-and-pop shop that has two-or-three employees, they have to follow those same regulations. They don't have a team of lawyers or an HR department that deals with that stuff. It's not a small cost to them."
He thinks education, instead of punishment or fines, is the solution. Claeys thinks the state's online Kansas Business Center needs to improve in educating people how to create a business. He thinks the state's three departments that deal with new business – Secretary of State, Department of Revenue and Department of Labor – should create a computer link that share the same basic information to keep businesses from filing repetitive information.
"Right now, if you go online, there's not a step-by-step process on how to create your business," Claeys said. "It's just simple things like that we can do to say hey, if you want to start a business, these are the steps you need to take ... (The Kansas Business Center is) just telling you were to go to fill something out, if you happen to need it. Whether you need it or not, you don't know. What I would propose is to bring all that information into the same location so people are not repeatedly bringing the same information over and over again."
The other job aspect of running the office is running elections and supervising countys. A voter identification card is the certain to be a reality soon, Claeys said.
"It's passed in the past by the legislature but vetoed by the governor," Claeys said. "Most reasonable people think we're going to have a Republican governor this time around. That Republican governor will sign that into law."
He said he is the only candidate with experience in working elections that require a uniformed voter ID card.
Though he has held no public office, he carries a significant national reputation. He has been quoted as a business expert from newspapers like The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post and The Chicago Tribune. In 2004, he was appointed by the Bush administration to be an advocacy judge for the Small Business Administration. His website is joinJR.com.
For the full story, see Sunday's edition of The Southwest TImes.
© 2008 Southwest Times
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