Karri Custardo: Candidate profile

Bio

Name: Karri Custardo

City: Winfield

Office sought: Trustee

Age: 48

Family: Single

Occupation: Sales Manager for AT&T; small business owner, From Shabby to Fabby.

Education: B.A. in English, Columbia College Chicago.

Civic involvement: A small-business owner in Winfield.

Previous elected offices held: None

Incumbent: No.

Website: winfieldkeepthemomentum.com

Facebook: fb.me/CandidateKarri

Twitter: N/A

Issue questions

Q. What are the most important issues facing Winfield and how do you intend to address them?

I believe our most important issue is the development of our downtown area and collaborating with Northwestern Medicine/Central DuPage Hospital to revitalize the Town Center. Providing opportunities for more business in the Town Center and improving the financial health of Winfield will impact the village for many generations. This is an opportunity for a real win-win, so I am looking forward to working for Winfield to make this a reality.

Q. What makes you the best candidate for the job?

I am a property and small business owner in Winfield which makes me passionate about our success and our future. I want to do everything I can to help our businesses thrive here. I am closer to that challenge than most, making me uniquely qualified. I also have a better understanding of what we would need to do to help our small businesses thrive, something we haven't taken the opportunity to do in the past and I want to change this. I also have 17 years of sales operations, project management and leadership skills in a Fortune 500 company.

I have worn many different hats, giving me the opportunity to collaborate with many different personalities, work on large projects and see them through to completion and even lead teams through difficult changes. I have the tenacity and passion to get the job done as well as the ability to offer a fresh perspective.

Q. Describe your leadership style and explain how that will be effective in producing actions and decisions with the Winfield City Council.

Anyone who has ever worked for me will tell you that I create a team environment. I believe we all have strengths and it's important that we know what those are, understand and respect each others' and let people do what they do best and learn from them. On my team I encourage people to speak freely and value opinions. We should all feel safe enough to agree to disagree and make decisions for the greater good, even when we don't necessarily like it personally. I have found this leadership style to serve me well over my years in management and I have always created teams which were considered best in class. While I would be joining a well established team, the time I have already had the pleasure to spend with them feels no different to me than the way I manage my own teams. This is a group of people I respect and I have no doubt we would be very effective together.

Q. How would you describe the condition of Winfield's budget, and what are specific actions the town should take to assure providing the level of services people want?

We've come a long way thanks to President Spande and the current board but there's more to do. A collaborative relationship with Northwestern/CDH is going to be pivotal in the overall health of our budget. Also, by really listening to the voices of the residents and always doing our best to represent their wants and needs goes a long way in helping to provide the level of service people want. As an elected official it would be not only my honor to represent them but my fiduciary responsibility as well. That means a lot to me.

Q. What's one good idea you have to better the community that no one is talking about yet?

I have a ton of ideas I would love to talk about! As a small-business owner in our new vintage and antique district there are many exciting events we can have to bring people in from other towns and we're in discussions with the newly formed Winfield Chamber of Commerce to make some of those happen.

I would love to see an Art in the Park event celebrating our local artists and bringing in others from nearby towns as well as shoppers from many towns around Illinois, perhaps along our new Riverwalk.

We've been a sleeper town for too long. We could be a destination spot. I know that when the vintage shops have events on the same weekend we get people who come in from as far away as Wisconsin.

So we're already on our way, we just need to keep the momentum going and pull our other local businesses into the mix. We have a lot to offer with the new Riverwalk and a growing downtown area. I really hope everyone is as excited as I am about the progress!