<bt> Del. Joe May plans to rely on his energy and experience to get elected as Virginia's lieutenant governor.
May, a self-described conservative/moderate, announced his candidacy last week. He said his background makes him an ideal candidate for the job. "I was born and raised on a farm and I'm a technologist by profession," he said. "When you look at Virginia, it is both rural and suburban, and our largest industry is technology."
He has represented Republican the 33rd district, Loudoun County and parts of Clarke County, for 11 years. He and his wife Bobby have two daughters and live two miles south of Leesburg.
"I plan to make the lieutenant governor's job something other than a holding pattern for the governor's office," he said. "I particularly want to work in the areas of economic development and streamlining government."
That doesn't mean he would dodge a run for governor if the opportunity surfaced. "It's a long time away, but if that's a possibility, sure I'd be interested," he said. "In the meantime I'm interested in becoming lieutenant governor."
He will be facing a number of Republican candidates in the 2005 primary, including Sen. Bill Bolling of Hanover County. Bolling has been stumping for the job for two years.
May, 66, said he has a long list of issues he would champion if elected. He would like to "lead the charge" in recruiting businesses to Virginia. "I'm a businessman," he said. "I speak the language. I know what is important to companies who are considering moving here."
May, an inventor with 18 patents, founded EIT (Electronic Instrumentation and Technology) of Sterling in 1977. The Sterling business has created several hundred jobs and established markets in 15 different countries, he said.
Alfred Perry, a long-time Loudoun County Republican, said he has been a staunch supporter since May first ran for House of Delegates. "He's a natural politician and an excellent businessman. That's because he has an incisive mind that gets to the heart of the problems faced by government officials very quickly."
As a delegate, May said he worked to streamline government, to make it smaller and more cost effective. To alleviate long lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles, he proposed having driver's licenses expire on a person's birthday. Until then, they expired at the end of the month, which accounted for so many people going to the DMV at the same time.
May also introduced a bill that ultimately changed a Virginia Department of Transportation rural roads policy. It had been VDOT's practice to build a two-lane highway whenever a rural one-lane road needed paving. May spearheaded legislation to pave the rural road rather than expand it to two lanes. "It literally costs one tenth of what it cost before," he said. "These dirt roads were relatively low traffic and it was overkill. ... At a million dollars a mile (for paving), it would be a long time before you got around to paving some of them."
Virginia has 4,000 miles of dirt road; Loudoun County has 340 of those miles.
May is chairman of the House of Delegate's Science and Technology Committee, chairman of the Joint Commission on Technology and Science, vice chairman of the Transportation Committee, a member of the Appropriations Committee and chairman of the Appropriations' Subcommittee on Transportation.
"I have covered the entire state in connection with committee work and economic development activities," he said.