Candidate Q&A: Marc Cerniglia

Name:

Marc Cerniglia

Party, Position Seeking:

Unaffiliated, Selectman

Background:

Born: New York, New York

Places Where I Have Lived: Connecticut (Canton since November 2004), New York, Germany, Virginia, Kentucky, California, Illinois, and Washington D.C.

 Education:

• U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York, B.S., 1984. Nominated by the Honorable Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York and the Honorable Richard L. Ottinger of New York’s then 20th U.S. Congressional District
• University of Virginia, Darden School of Business, Charlottesville, Virginia, M.B.A., General Management, 1991

Family information:

Married for ten years with two young children who both attend Canton Schools

Occupation:

Employment and Professional 

• Founded my own company and self‐employed for the past eleven years as a service operations and building transportation management consultant conducting business in the U.S.A., Kuwait, and the U.A.E.
• Executive in charge of North American Field Operations for Access Technologies — a division of Stanley Black & Decker (formerly The Stanley Works) manufacturing, installing, and servicing automatic entrance doors
• Management Consultant with Booz & Company (formerly Booz Allen & Hamilton) advising Fortune 100 companies on strategic operational matters
• U.S. Army Officer in the active, reserve, and national guard components. Spent active duty as a platoon leader and troop executive officer in the former West Germany leading troops performing NATO defense missions and commanding border security operations on the former East Germanand Czechoslovakian‐borders with West Germany
• Field operations manager for Otis Elevator Company in New York City running all repair work in Manhattan below 96th Street. Led over forty teams of mechanics and four superintendents
• Strategic planning manager at Otis Elevator Company’s world headquarters in Farmington, Connecticut, working with and briefing senior executives regarding important business matters affecting the global business
• Financial services representative and manager having run captive leasing programs for high‐tech companies in Silicon Valley and having sold fixed income securities to institutional investors
• Experienced new construction project manager with general knowledge of the construction industry and site development, excavation, and lifts in particular
• Engineer‐in‐training, Commonwealth of Virginia
• Certified Elevator Inspector in accordance with the standards established by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (certificate parked)

Other Items of Interest:

• Private Pilot as certified by the Federal Aviation Administration
• Bicycled solo from Sydney to Melbourne, Australia
• Recruited from high school to play N.C.A.A. Division I Lacrosse at nationally ranked top‐ten schools

Political Experience:

• Delegate to Connecticut State Republican Convention in 2010
• Canton, Connecticut, Republican Town Committee, Former Member
• Volunteer working for the George H.W. Bush’s presidential re‐election campaign in New York
• Managed my own campaign for selectmen in 2009 and 2011

Other Relevant Experience, Community Service

• Selectman, Town of Canton, 2009 – Present
• Member, Capital Projects Study Group, Town of Canton, 2011 – Present
• Member, Canton Planning Commission, 2005 – 2009
• Member, Capitol Region Council of Government’s Planning Committee, 2005 – 2007
• Member, Canton Chamber of Commerce 2004 – 2008
• Cherry Brook Primary School P.T.O.: Vice President, Treasurer

• Member, Congressman Nancy Johnson’s West Point (U.S. Military Academy) Nominating Committee
• West Point (U.S. Military Academy) Field Admissions Officer
• Catechist and Hall Monitor, Church of St. Ann, Avon
• Assistant Coach, Canton Youth Lacrosse — Boys Grades 5 and 6, and Girls Developmental
• Cub Scout Pack 177 Pinewood Derby Race Meister

Why are you running for office?

I am doing this for my children because I am concerned about the future. When Dick Barlow asked me to replace Tim LeGeyt on the Board of Selectmen, someone said to me that I must be re‐elected in order to do any good. The best intentions notwithstanding, I have come to believe wholeheartedly that this very attitude is the root‐cause of so many of the problems we see in both D.C. and Hartford. Elected office is both a privilege and tremendous opportunity to serve the common good. Therefore, personal and parochial interests should never enter into decision‐making. I learned this at West Point and continue to believe it. The inviolability of one’s duty to his fellow citizens is a paramount ideal that must guide all elected officials.

Whenever any elected official takes a decision based in part or in whole on the effect of his vote on his re‐election, then he has started down a slippery slope that can only end, however unintentional, violating his constituents’ trust. I have aimed to uphold this trust when governing and will continue to do so. Also, doing good does not necessarily mean doing something; one can do much good by preventing bad ideas from ever seeing the light of day. Principled leadership is critical to the longevity of any successful community. To govern well one must be open to all ideas irrespective of the source, yet they must have merit, be good for the entire community — not just a particular constituency — comply with our constitutions and charter, and make sound, economic sense. Knowing what the right thing to do is seldom difficult. Doing the right thing is often the tough part. We must, nevertheless, continue to strive to do the right thing because we owe it to our fellow citizens and children.

What skills do you have that you could bring to the community?

As a result of my broad management and leadership experiences, as well as my education, my greatest assets are my abilities to:

• Manage and lead an organization of almost any size 
• Listen to what people have to say
• Identify the key issues driving complex problems in organizations, develop solutions, and implement them. As one of my bosses wrote in an evaluation, I am able to solve quickly any problem, no matter how intractable, and implement a workable solution
• Understand the economic implications of decisions
• Integrate the advice of different people whose expertise spans a broad spectrum of disciplines. This allows me to understand and best manage the risks inherent in the difficult decisions that leaders face
• Apply common sense to situations thereby striking the right balance between theory and everyday reality
• Identify the key items to measure and drive improvements in service delivery while simultaneously reducing costs

If elected, what would be your primary areas of focus?

• Develop the Axe Factory! The Axe Factory can be a tremendous asset for us only if the community gets behind the effort. I have heard many complaints about the shameful neglect of the Axe Factory. I will work to get the entire town behind the effort instead of just watching. I will, also, network tirelessly to get the message out to as many potential investors and developers as possible. We should also make it the number one priority for the town’s economic development commission and land‐use office.
• Improve Town Services and Reduce Spending by 10 percent: Canton is a great place and we can make it “more better than ever”, but that requires money and we are taxed enough. The question, then, is not “what we do”, rather “how we do it”. Improving services and lowering costs are not mutually exclusive goals. Our government delivers services very similar to many private companies. With common sense, some relatively simple, time‐proven techniques used in the business world, and a little innovation, we will save money. Think about it, with a $9‐million budget, even a savings of 2% or 3% could result in serious ongoing — not one time, but ongoing — savings that we can use for things like road maintenance.
• Improve our land use processes, promote responsible development, and become a more businessfriendly town. Canton has a terrible reputation as being to business. This must change.
• Return our roads to acceptable conditions without bonding for maintenance. Long‐term financing for road maintenance is bad fiscal policy. Bonding should be used to create real assets, not fix them. We should pay for maintenance out of the town’s operating budget. Which we can do if we reduce spending.
• Work with the Board of Education to build a track and field that serve the schoolchildren and the public

Name something the town has done well over the past four years.

I believe that our town employees have done a fantastic job of delivering services despite the lack of any sort of plans that establish priorities, set improvement goals, and define service levels. As a result, they are left to fend for themselves without the necessary leadership and support from the town administration to make material, long‐lasting improvements to town services. This requires leadership.

What is something the town could have done better during the past four years?

The biggest area which requires improvement lies in the daily operational management of town services.

Put simply, the town has few if any measurements in place to track performance and, few, if any goals to drive service excellence. So, how can we know how good or bad our service is, how economically we deliver those services, or whether we are improving? If you do are not measuring performance, you cannot expect improve it. We are kind of like a runner trying to make it to the Olympics without a stopwatch.

(Optional) Anything else you would like to share?
After thirty years of loyal membership, I resigned the Republican Party and became unaffiliated, because, despite the best intentions, the interests of the party and a few people have eclipsed what is best for the common good of the town. We have seen what parochial self‐interest has done to Washington D.C. and Hartford and how it has resulted in our children’s having to bear the burden of massive debt. We do surely not want this same movie playing at a theater near us. We need people to serve who have the courage to lead from the front and do what is best for the town even though it may not be in their own individual self‐interest.