Issue link: http://www.insightdigital.biz/i/252322
w w w . i n s i g h t o n b u s i n e s s . c o m F e b r u a r y 2 0 14 • I nsIgh t | 19 EvEr sIncE I was 9, I wantEd to be president. I love politics and I love government. My calling is to help people. I was elected to the Manitowoc city council at the age of 18 in 2005. I beat a 16-year incumbent in that election, served on the city council for four years and was the city council president in 2007. I graduated from Manitowoc Lutheran high school in 2005 and I got my associate degree from the University of wisconsin- Manitowoc, attended Uw-green Bay and Uw-Milwaukee, and I'm finishing up at silver Lake college. I had to put my studies aside when I ran for mayor in 2009. I was re-elected in 2013 with 84 percent of the vote against a local businessman. when I was elected in 2009, Manitowoc faced a 14 percent unemployment rate, one of the highest in the state. at was just devastating our economy. today, we're at about 7.5 percent unemployment. e year I got elected, the first thing my city planner came to me with was the plan for dermatology associates, and said this is going to be the most important (project), because it could've gone to green Bay, appleton or sheboygan. e city put a couple million Justin Nickels on serving community U P F R O N T face time P H O T O G R A P H B Y S H A N e VA N B O x T e l / I M A G e S T U D I O S , F O R I N S I G H T Justin Nickels was elected mayor of Manitowoc in 2009 at 22, one of the youngest mayors in the nation. During his first term, he made budget cuts that would decrease the city's debt from $75 million to about $30 million by 2018. Nickels, who was re-elected in 2013, sat down with Insight Associate Editor Nikki Kallio to talk about Manitowoc's strengths and rapidly decreasing unemployment rate. [continued ] »