Jess Hisel

Jess Hisel was born in Richland Center, Wisconsin. Hisel's professional experience includes working as an engineer and small business owner. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 2000 to 2004. Hisel earned an associate degree from Madison Area Technical College in 2000, an associate degree from the Community College of the Air Force in 2002, and a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin - Madison.[1]

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

My name is Jess Hisel, and I am running as an Independent for the office of Wisconsin Governor in 2022 to restore faith and develop compromise in our government. I am a husband, father of 3 boys, US Air Force Veteran, UW Madison graduate & employee (SMPH Operations Superintendent), mechanical engineer, Wisconsin native, and the founder of PCU4Education. I do not affiliate with any political party. I want to restore the people’s trust in our leadership. We should be able to handle issues and achieve common goals in an efficient & timely manner.

I support funding and strengthening our public education, transparency in our spending, small farms, police funding and training, fixing social disparities and inequalities, criminal reform, affordable health care, term limits, stop gerrymandering, fixing adoption, and many other issues that are for the people of Wisconsin. We need to put people before politics. Wisconsin is tired of the negativity an inaction and it is trickling into our communities. Only by coming together will we be able to make a change that must be beneficial to Wisconsin.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

Wisconsin needs better leaders that are altruistic and stop the party fighting for power control. We must represent the people.We need transparency and oversight into our government to verify integrity and not laws that enable secrecy and anti-corruption laws.Wisconsin needs an Independent oversight into our election process. We must bring back the Independent Government Accountability Board that is not run by Republicans & Democrats.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

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Create a new culture in our government for unity and compromise to pass legislation. Compromise is the only path forward.

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I support public schools. They need funding and support for quality education and to stop the referendums. I support all schools public, private, or charter, they all just need to be funded fairly.

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Stimulate our small businesses to get them back up after COVID and boost our tourism. Small business is crucial to Wisconsin, especially in our rural areas.

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Bring transparency to our government and our budget with logical oversight for the people. Tax payers need to know where our funds are being spent and we should support independent watchdogs.

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Support, fund, and train law enforcement to strengthen relationships with communities. If we want to help the police, stop crime and violence.

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Support and assistance for Social Justice programs. To fix the disparities and racism, we need to start today. This will be a generational change. If we address the inequalities and marginalized neighborhoods, this is a start. We need target investments and jobs similar to the New Deal for assistance and strengthen the youth through education.

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Criminal reform for the incarcerated through education & opportunity.

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Farming assistance and work for more trade negotiations & better milk prices. Install digestors to prevent pollution.

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Lower Health Care costs and stop the outrageous deductibles. Open up Badger Care and increase Telehealth for all Wisconsin.

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

As a veteran, the military taught me core values and to this day, I stand by them 110%. Our elected officials should follow these core values when serving the office for the people.

Integrity - The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. Speaking the truth is very important to me. I refuse to dance around the issues and I will confront them. Integrity to me is doing the right thing even when nobody is watching.

Service before self - Do what is right for our country and not for yourself. We need to look at what the people want and how to represent them to reach those goals. Representation of the people is truly what public office is all about, not an affiliation to a political party.

Excellence in all we do - We have to work to be the best. If we continue down the same road without adapting to the everchanging world, we will always fall behind. We have to strive for perfection and nothing less. We need to understand that peoples lives are at stake and public office should be taken seriously. Striving for perfection and excellence is truly the best way to save lives.

What legacy would you like to leave?

Wisconsin is currently the worst in the nation for many major issues and we need a new culture that fosters collaboration. I want a legacy that people start working together for the greater good. My vision is to be able to communicate again and have people start trusting our government. Over 90% of Americans currently have no trust in our government. This is not for the people.

I want to do what is right and stop the negativity in our society. By working together at the top, and communicating effectively, kindness and creativity will trickle down and inspire collaboration within our local municipalities. I hope to inspire others to stand up and run for public office.

My legacy will follow my motto - Look forward! Don't look back, we're not going that way.

What is the first historical event that happened in your lifetime that you remember? How old were you at the time?

Of course the largest historical event in my lifetime is the September 11th attack on America. I was 24 at the time and on the day of the attack, I was traveling from Texas to Wisconsin on leave from the Air Force. I had just stopped for a quick nap at a café in Missouri and when I woke for breakfast, all TV's in the establishment were laser focused on the event. The replays of planes striking the towers replayed over and over and were engrained in all our minds, and then the horror of the towers collapsing. I immediately headed the opposite direction and returned to Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene and helped prepare for forward operations. Within a few weeks, we had all of the aircraft and supplies ready for our deployment.

I will never forget the scene the morning of departure with the seemingly endless line of the aircraft traveling the taxiway. We were gone within moments without knowing what was happening or when we would return. I remember the anger, fear, and excitement in our eyes as we flew to the desert. Even when we arrived and during the tour, emotions were difficult. War is horrible for all that are involved. There were many soldiers that we transported in/out of operations through those years that you could look in their eyes and see they had changed. We have to support all military members for all issues that they are faced with.

Even today when I look back, it's such a sad time in our history. We now know about signs/events that were missed that could have prevented this and other events from happening. We need to pay attention to these signals and learn from our history. We should be more proactive in our government and not reactive. Government policies are reactive in nature, that something bad is happening and now we have to fix it. We should have the leadership that looks to our future and anticipates and plans for the wellbeing of our citizens. We should support programs that help Wisconsin be better and hold true to our motto...FORWARD.

If you could be any fictional character, who would you want to be?

Interesting...I would say any of them that can fly. Maybe it's the Air Force still in me, but our world is beautiful and looking down on it is even more amazing. We have the twisting streams that carve their way through the valleys, to the large rivers that hold all my fish that I haven't caught yet. The rolling hills in the southern portion of the state to the large lakes on our eastern & northern border. Wisconsin, and America, have so much to offer and seeing it from the sky shows just how little we are. We need to protect what we have for not only us, but our future generations. If we abuse it, we will lose it.

A governor is the top executive authority in his or her state. What does that mean do you?

The most important quality of a Governor is that he/she needs to be a leader. True leaders communicate effectively with all parties involved and know how to relate to everyone to get people to work effectively. Leaders need to be able to work with all paradigms of people and listen and react to all sides. Our government has become a duopoly with no collaboration unless it is for some humanitarian or social issues.

Wisconsin has been ignoring large issues for years and a Governor needs to keep these important issues out front and keep working until they are fixed. Inaction is not Forward. We need to keep the agenda that is for the people and always move Forward! Forward is a direction with no end.

A Governor should be a leader that does not support negativity and should be able to work past this. The pessimism across the state has never been higher and we need a leader that can take the high road. There will always be hurdles and challenges, but "slinging mud" is not an effective team building technique. Party line is not always the best road to travel and we need to truly represent the people and what is most beneficial for our state.

Different states require governors to have different degrees of responsibility for the state budgeting process. If it were your choice, what do you believe is the appropriate degree of gubernatorial involvement with this process in your state?

In Wisconsin, our budget process is broken. We need to be better collaborators with all representatives to have a budget that is best for Wisconsin. As governor, I would work with the JFC and House while constructing the initial budget. Establishing more communication at the beginning will save thousands of hours of review and debate and we become more efficient.

To also help fix our budget in Wisconsin, we need independent oversight and transparency. Taxpayers should have 100% oversight into where their money is spent and also who is advocating for these expenditures. Independent watchdogs need to be involved with this transparency. We have been driving in a dark tunnel for years and it's time to turn the lights on.

What do you believe is the ideal relationship between the governor and state legislature?

Our governor, state legislature, and even local governments need to have relationships to stimulate communication. I am very frustrated with communication through media channels and not communication between organizations and districts. We need to be able to work together and communicate to be able to work for all residents of WI. I do not want to hear about staff members for a party that are getting reprimanded for talking to other members in other parties ever again.

The fighting and negativity between the 2 current parties is not benefiting Wisconsin residents. There will of course always be disagreements and different perspectives, this is what makes freedom in our country so great. But we need to find the common ground for issues and work to get those views passed.

Forward is a journey, not a destination.

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