Gary Good: Candidate Profile

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Note: Answers provided have not been edited for grammar, misspellings or typos. In some instances, candidate claims that could not be immediately verified have been omitted. Jump to:BioQA Bio City: ShorewoodWebsite: www.vote4good.comTwitter: Candidate did not respond.Facebook: Candidate did not respond.Office sought: Will County Auditor Age: 44Family: Wife, Magdalena GoodSon, Sam GoodDaughter, Emily GoodDaughter, Abby GoodDog, Rico Suave GoodOccupation: Retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel / Owner Founder of Straterations, Inc. Coaching ConsultingEducation: BS in Information Technology / SUNYMBA / University of Illinois @ Urbana-ChampaignCivic involvement: Candidate did not respond.Elected offices held: None. Retired from US Army on April 1, 2016Questions Answers Why are you running for this office, whether for re-election or election for the first time? Is there a particular issue that motivates you? If so, what?Servant leadership. For 22+ years, I have served our nation in the US Army. Year after year, I have watched the state I love become less than it should be. The citizens of Illinois deserve leaders who want to serve their fellow citizens rather than serve themselves. I retired from the US Army and immediately returned to Illinois to start making a difference. I am honored to seek the vote of my fellow citizens as their County Auditor. I run for office to serve them and their children, grandchildren, and the generations long after I will serve no longer.What special qualifications does a county auditor need that may not apply to other county offices? What professional qualifications or experiences do you possess that will help ensure your success as auditor?A county auditor should have the ability to find problems, to dig deeply into processes and decision-making methods, and to evaluate the managers and leaders who run the county. Numbers and accounting skills are very important, but they rarely reveal the problems hiding fraud, waste, and abuse. MBAs, ORSAs, CPAs, and Systems Engineers all have the required analytical skills. I possess an MBA along with years of experience evaluating processes, decision-making methods, and more that waste resources. At the Pentagon, I wrote the Army's Business Management Strategy for the accountability, streamlining, and efficiency of $30 billion in annual business operations.To what extent must an auditor remain independent of other county offices and officials, and how will you ensure the appropriate level of independence in this office?An auditor must maintain a respectful independence from the other offices to have the ability to identify fraud, waste, and abuse of the leaders and employees in the offices. The auditor must be able to work with others while instituting the authority the citizens demand. Just as I have done for 22+ years in the Army, I will show the staff across the county offices that I am someone they can turn to for objective analysis but that I will be the first to inform the citizens, and when necessary, the authorities whenever fraud, waste, and abuse is discovered.Describe your position regarding the allocation of resources in the auditor's office. Are personnel allocated as they should be? Are there capital expense or other budgetary items that the office must address, and, if so, how do you propose to address them?The auditor's office is small already and conducts most all auditing functions through external accounting firms. It is not feasible from outside of the office, with the information available to the public, to ascertain how resource allocation is currently conducted. However, the current auditor has failed to find fraud, waste, or abuse over 7+ years in office. I would reallocate more of the staff's efforts towards evaluating the processes and controls (e.g. the control of pilferable items such as ink cartridges) that have the highest risk of loss across the county.Please list any elected office you've ever run for and what the result of that election was. Have you ever been appointed to fill an unexpired term?I have never run for office nor been appointed until I retired on April 1, 2016 from the US Army. I was recently appointed as a precinct committeeman in Troy Township.What other issues, if any, are important to you as a candidate for this office?The auditor must provide for the transparency of the county's checkbook but then not rely on external organizations and watchdogs to find the fraud, waste, and abuse that hide beneath the surface of the numbers. The GAO changed from the Government Accounting Office to the Government Accountability Office in 2004 because the federal government recognized that we do not have trillions in federal debt due to a lack of transparency or poor accounting. We need elected officials and servant leaders who will dig deeper into the processes, decision-making methods, and the leaders to find fraud, waste, and abuse.Please name one current leader who most inspires you.Mike Pence. Throughout his life, he has been an upstanding, honorable man who served the people with integrity and compassion.What is the biggest lesson you learned at home growing up?Kindness. Kindness in love. Kindness though honesty. One cannot grow when others are kind in a false way. One grows through love and honesty.If life gave you one do-over, what would you spend it on?I do not believe in do-overs. Every situation provides the opportunity to grow. If I did something over, I would not be here today.What was your favorite subject in school and how did it help you in later life?Logic. The ability to formulate a proper argument and understand when leaps of logic occur ensures accurate consideration of the situation.If you could give your children only one piece of advice, what would it be?Honesty. Be honest in everything to include when it hurts. It is best to be honest in a loving way than to hide behind falseness.