Don and Joanne are joined by Congressional Candidate for Pennsylvania’s 7th District Lisa Scheller and Facebook Whistleblower Ryan Hartwig.
LISA SCHELLER is a trailblazer in the world of business and a successful reformer in public service, embracing both roles with a sense of humanity and purpose.
Scheller is the granddaughter of immigrants who in 1945, founded Silberline Manufacturing Co., one of the region’s premier manufacturers, making a key ingredient in paints and coatings. Lisa took over running the company, following her brother’s death, and is currently chairman and president. It is the only certified women-owned business of its kind in the world.
With global headquarters north of the Lehigh Valley, the company employs more than 160 people in manufacturing jobs right here in Pennsylvania and 500 people worldwide.
Silberline recently opened a new manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania making state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly, sustainable products for the coatings industry. Lisa knows first-hand how red tape and radical proposals like the Green New Deal stymie our local businesses and families.
In 2011, alarmed by a Lehigh County tax increase, Lisa ran on a reform message and was elected to the Lehigh County Board of Commissioners, where she successfully led efforts to cut taxes every year, saving taxpayers over 41 million dollars. She served as board chair for two years.
Lisa gained a reputation as a fiscally conservative fighter who advocated for spending restraint, lower taxes, job creation, and an end to special-interest giveaways.
As a commissioner, reduced property taxes and streamlined government operations while keeping a close and skeptical eye on new spending.
“Four years in a row there was either a reduction in the millage rate, a rebate, or both. And it was always a fight,” she recalls.
Under Lisa’s leadership, the Board of Commissioners reasserted its control over contract negotiations with the county’s public sector unions, meaning it was no longer in the hands of a single county executive to shape contracts.
“It marked an important step toward making government more accountable to the taxpayers who support it while reducing political pressure on the county’s negotiator.”
Lisa also led a drive for increased government transparency. She played an important role in opening Board of Commissioner committee meetings to the press and public – and she did it with bipartisan support. Lisa proved adept at creating consensus across party lines and did so during a time of deepening political division between Republicans and Democrats statewide and nationally.
Read more about Lisa’s vision on LISA SCHELLER FOR CONGRESS
RYAN HARTWIG grew up in Mesa, Arizona and graduated in 2015 with a bachelors degree in Spanish Linguistics from Arizona State University, where he also participated in psychology research as a research assistant for the P.E.A.R.L. Lab-Perception, Ecological Action, Robotics and Learning. As founder of The Hartwig Foundation for Free Speech, he advocates for free speech on the internet. Ryan has done more than 100 interviews in countries throughout the world including Japan, Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Canada and the U.K., discussing his experience as a whistleblower at Facebook.
You can learn more about Ryan on his WEBPAGE
You can purchase his book here Behind the Mask of Facebook: A Whistleblower’s Shocking Story of Big Tech Bias and Censorship