The Political Beat: One-on-One with State Senate Candidate Kevin Crutchfield

You can find their conversation below:

Joe Bruno: Let’s just start with where we are. Tell me about this business.

Kevin Crutchfield: Well, this is a family business, Casco Signs. We started this company in 1989 with literally a pickup truck and a ladder and a desire to serve the community. And you know, our basic goal when we started it was, “Look, let’s just say what we’re going to do, do what we say we’re going to do, and make the customers feel like they’re important and that what we’re doing is for them.” You know, I get the greatest satisfaction out of knowing that what we do is go help people put their names in lights and help them build their businesses, so we’re a business that helps businesses build, and that’s the greatest part about it.

JB: It’s probably a pretty cool creative outlet

KC: It is, you know. The downside is sometimes businesses close, and when they close, you have to take their signs down, and that’s kind of disappointing for everybody. But most of the time, we’re helping people build their dreams, and that’s what’s pretty cool about. And it goes beyond that. It’s really with the people here, the employees that are here. I mean, we have about 50 employees, and without those team members, we don’t have anything. And you know, we get the greatest satisfaction talk about the customers, but also talk about the people that work here that come here, work together as a team, make a living, go home and raise their families with it. And I think that’s kind of the coolest thing about starting and owning a business is those things that happen that you really didn’t think about in the beginning when you had one employee, but now you have 50 people supporting their families.

JB: How has your business experience been? How did it help you when you were in Raleigh? Like, what does that business background bring to you as a lawmaker?

KC: Well, this goes back a little bit. When I came to Charlotte, I went to work for IBM, and I learned a lot about how they budget at a large corporation like that. And I understand why they budget; they would basically go to different departments and say, “Hey, what do you need to run your department for the next year? And everybody would put, you know, what they’re requesting, and those would get approved or disapproved based on the overall budget of things, and then, you know, basically every time you wanted to spend money out of your budget, you had to go to finance and get somebody to sign off on it saying, ”Yes, you can use that money for that purpose. That exposure helped me a lot when I went to the state house because I got to sit in all the appropriations meetings. I was elected freshman leader, and one of the benefits was that they said, hey, you can come sit in senior appropriations meetings, you don’t have any input, but you can at least see the process. And the cool thing was, it was a lot like what I had learned in corporate America. The only difference was they don’t have that little, which I’d like to see us implement, that little side bet where you have to go back and say, “I need to get approval to use the money that’s been allocated in my budget. I think we should do that in North Carolina because sometimes we allocate money to an agency, and the money sits there, and if they don’t spend it, it sits there. And I think taxpayers need to know what’s happening with that.

JB: It’s never easy to run for office. It’s even harder to take on an incumbent, even if they are appointed. So, walk me through the decision to run for the seat, knowing you were challenging someone who is currently in it

KC: It took some time to get to that point, and I think at the end of the day, what I decided was that I had nothing, no issues with mr. Meesmer. I actually called him and told him I was going to run and told him why. I said, “Chris, look, you were appointed by 20 people in a district with 220,000. I just believe that the 220,000 people should have a voice in who represents them in Raleigh, and I want to take my resume and put it out there and give them a chance. And I said, “Honestly, Chris, if they pick you, I’ll support you. If if they pick me, I hope you’ll support me as well. So it wasn’t anything, and I told him at the time. I said, “Look, Chris, I’m not running a negative campaign. I’m not going against you or your family. I’d hope that you won’t do that to me or my family as well. Let’s just put our resumes out there and let the voters decide. And that was the goal in the beginning. Other forces get involved in those, and there was some negative campaigning that happened both from the Senate caucus eyes and from people that were supporting me, but I had nothing to do with that and no control over it. So, again, I feel the same way about this campaign. That from Kevin’s standpoint, you won’t see anything out there with my name attacking anyone about anything. I don’t believe that I have to do that. I believe that my resume itself should be sufficient.

JB: What is the biggest motivation for you to run for this seat, like what is driving this campaign?

KC: Well, when I ran the first time, the reason I really ran was I have nine grandkids, and I thought a lot about what someone in my position could do for grandkids, and kids after that as well. And I said, you know, going to Raleigh and have an opportunity to affect their future would probably be the greatest thing that I could do for them. I could give them some money, but that will go. But if I could help fix their future, or at least have a voice in making their future benefit for them, I thought that would be a great investment for me to do that. I will tell you, the other side of it is, I’ve never served in the military, and I saw this as an opportunity for me to give back in service for what I had been benefited from over my life, you know.

JB: What do you think is Cabarrus County’s biggest issue right now?

KC: I’d say growth. When you grow fast, it’s an impact on infrastructure. It’s an impact on how much building you have, how many roads you have, how many schools you have. So we’re dealing with that at a different level than the other 80 counties that are shrinking, and I think that’s one of our biggest challenges to continue to be mindful of the fact that we need to prepare for growth.

JB: Everyone loves a good bipartisan effort. Is there an issue you think you can work with Democrats on in the state Senate?

KC: When I was the freshman leader, I called the freshman leader of the Democratic Party, and I said, “Hey, I got an idea. He said, “What’s that? I said, “I think you and I should meet. I think we should talk about it because you think you know who I am, and you’re probably wrong, and the same goes for me. I’m probably wrong about you. So what I’d like to do is get together, go hit some golf balls, go get a beer, whatever it takes. Let’s get to know each other as people. Let’s get to know what drives us, why we’re here, why we decided to serve. So then, when we have these discussions about issues, we can at least understand where the other person is coming from. I said, look, the hard right, the hard issues. We’re never going to solve those right here. But what we can do is take the issues we do agree on, and do some great legislation for Cabarrus County and for North Carolina. And one of those bills that we put through last time was the anti-human trafficking legislation that I that I put through the House, and that passed with outstanding bipartisan support. So there’s an issue where all of us can agree that’s a problem in our communities, and we need to do more to solve it.

JB: What do you think separates you from your opponent?

KC: I’d have to say experience. You know, just the business acumen, the experience of being in Raleigh, passing legislation, and getting it done. You know, just in rough numbers, about 1,800 bills get introduced in a session. Of those 1,800, about a 180 of them come down to the end where they have a chance, and you figure that out. There’s 170 legislators, 180 bills. That’s basically one per legislator. And I had seven pieces of legislation passed in my first year as a freshman legislator. To me, that was a big win. I didn’t go up there to try to rack up numbers. I went up there to get some things done. My point is, I understand the system, how it gets done, and was able to be effective in how I do that. And I think that’s the benefit I bring to the To the citizens of Cabarrus County: I have experience at doing that and getting it done, and I look forward to you know being their senator.

>> You can watch the interview in the video at the top of the page.