Illinois Republican Rep. Aaron Schock’s path to Congress and his hopes for the country’s future

His eighth grade year he began a five year stint managing the scale house operations of a gravel pit. “Sand and gravel goes into everything, roads, bridges, skyscrapers, houses, you name it,” Schock said. “At the same time I was learning accounting — and this company had no computers — and so I learned old school ledger accounting and became very interested in accounting through that experience.”

Schock left the gravel pit after high school and spent his college years buying up real estate. After graduating from college in two years, Schock co-founded and ran Garage Tek, a garage closet construction business, until he ran for state representative. After his first re-election, Schock accepted a job as the director of development with Peterson Companies of Peoria.

He views himself as a Ronald Reagan/Jack Kemp hybrid, with Reagan’s conservatism and Kemp’s chutzpah. “When I was in the state Capitol I had a very Democratic district, had the most Democratic district in Illinois, outside of Chicago. It had never been held by a Republican until I won it and beat an eight-year incumbent to get there. In my district there were 40,000 voters, 20,000 on food stamps, a huge union presence and my effort was, ‘Look, you don’t have to agree with me, I just want a forum. I just want to tell you why I’m running and see if we cant agree on some issues.’ And what I found was I could vote against things like the raising minimum wage … and go back and explain to them why it didn’t make sense to raise the cost of labor, what it meant to the jobs and the economic activity in the area and they understood it.”

Indeed, Schock’s two biggest issues are taxes and trade. “With a background in finance and entrepreneurship, to me, there are few things more important than tax policy. I think the economic situation we are in speaks to that … Reviving the economy is job number one.” He continued, “As much as the president talks about doubling exports the reality is America’s competitiveness is under assault by his bad tax policies, economic policies and unwillingness to allow us to compete with our global competitors.”

Schock rarely stops working and has annoyingly few vices. His one guilty pleasure? Magazines. With all his travel back and forth between Illinois and D.C., “I will read upwards of 30 magazines a month. Everything from Architectural Digest, U.S. News, Time magazine, GQ, Details, Conde Nast. I have them all sent up to an address in Peoria and put them in a bag — I don’t get to watch TV much, so it is a way for me to stay up on the culture.”

What will the future bring for Rep. Schock? “I think you work hard, you apply yourself, and deliver for the people you work for, they are going to give you other opportunities. So being in Congress is an awesome opportunity, it was one I jumped at when it presented itself, but whether I am going to be here for the next 10 to 20 years is up to the voters and partly up to what other opportunities might come along. So I’m going to stay focused on the job at hand.”

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