Meet the Candidate: Daniel Dawson - Supervisor District 2

Name: Daniel E. Dawson

Age: 72

Office running for: Yuma County supervisor for District 2

Family: My wife, Bobbi, and I are longtime Yuma residents. We have been married over 40 years and have three children and six grandchildren. Our son, John, and his teen-aged children Miles and Colleen, also call Yuma home. Our daughter, Lee Ann, is a Hospice nurse living in Oak View, Calif., and a son, Kevin, is an engineer for the city of Seattle.

Party: Democrat

Education: I hold a degree in general science and have several electrical certifications and course completion certificates for management and leadership courses. Over the course of my life, I have been a firm believer in the value of education and have never passed up an opportunity to learn and study.

Employment: Most of my life was spent working on off-shore drilling rigs around the world. When I retired from the oil field, I was a department head within the engineering section. My family presently owns Dawson Legal Documents & Services LLC where we help community members solve legal problems when they are not represented by an attorney.

To what organizations do you belong? I am a past board member of the Yuma Reading Council. I currently am a board member and treasurer of the Yuma Library Foundation and treasurer of the local branch of the NAACP.

What in your past experiences helps qualify you for this seat? I have always been a hard worker and have no plans to stop now. When elected, I will devote all of my time to doing the work of county supervisor. While a college degree and leadership certifications are certainly helpful, it is all of my other life experiences that have had the greatest impact in preparing me for a supervisor position. First, I am a veteran. Then my work in the oil field gave me the opportunity to know and work with people of all stations in life from the roughneck to owners and managers of multimillion-dollar operations.

In addition to working with and managing diverse personalities, I have prepared and managed budgets and been responsible for machines and equipment valued at millions of dollars. Along with work experience, my family and friends have taught me over the years to respect the views of others and the very real possibility of finding common grounds for common problems. I hold people (including myself) accountable for their actions. I hate gossip and unsubstantiated rumors but will always address the concerns of the voters and strive to resolve any problems involving the County of Yuma.

If elected, what is the one issue on which you would focus to improve Yuma's quality of life? How? Everyone says it and I have to agree: It's jobs, jobs, jobs. More jobs, quality jobs, would help bring prosperity to the county. Individual families could prosper and more money would be available for our educational system and our infrastructure. New businesses could inject vitality and life into our community and give our children the desire and ability to stay in Yuma and raise their own families.

Knowing this, I would focus my time on bringing new industry and good paying jobs to Yuma in conjunction with working with our educators to insure that our workers have the training to fill top paying jobs. I would like to work closely with the Greater Yuma Economic Development Corporation and the Yuma County Chamber of Commerce. I have often said that this will require a full time supervisor who will spend all of their time working and reaching out to others to make this happen. I promise to be such a supervisor.

What would you do to make government more accessible? I believe that the tools are already in place to make government more accessible but it is up to the elected officials to be available and make use of all of the communication fields available to them. I will be a full-time supervisor and will make myself available to the people of Yuma County whenever possible. I will be on the clock every day and will arrange evening or weekend meetings at least once a week. In order to do that, I will contact various businesses that will allow meetings on their premises.

Who is your personal hero, and why? Joshua Slocum. Slocum was a seaman and adventurer who, in July 1895, set sail in a 36-foot boat for the first around-the-world single-handed voyage. It took him three years to accomplish this feat which most people at that time said was not possible. I admire Slocum for his bravery and willingness to prove conventional wisdom wrong. Slocum wrote about his trip in his book “Sailing Alone Around the World.” My father told me that it was required reading when he was in school and I am proud to have a copy and read it, along with the Bounty Trilogy, when I am in need of a sea adventure.