Herm Suplizio

Election Day is less than a week away, and one of the more interesting races is the one for the 25th Senatorial District seat held by Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, who is retiring.

Over the past several weeks, The Express has reached out to each candidate to find out what makes them tick and why they should get your vote.

John “Herm” Suplizio, Republican, is the city manager of DuBois. He said that enjoys helping people and connecting with his potential constituents.

Because he is such a “people person,” campaigning from behind a desk has been especially difficult, he said. “I like to get my hands dirty,” Suplizio said in a recent interview with The Express.

Suplizio has an eclectic resume. He’s done a little bit of everything — from running the United Way to being fire chief and the DuBois City Manager.

Suplizio said that these are difficult times for everyone, but he is working hard to do his part to guide the community safely through the health crisis and support residents who need help locating resources during the pandemic.

The Express: Tell our readers a little bit about your background? Who are you? Where are you from? What practical experience do you possess?

Suplizio: I am a graduate of Central Catholic High School in DuBois, a 1978 graduate. I was the executive director of the DuBois Area United Way and still am. I started in that position in 1993. I ran for mayor in DuBois in 1999 and became the mayor in 2000. I served as mayor from 2000 to 2010. I was off and on the city manager and the mayor because we were without a city manager. In 2010, I became the city manager full-time. That brings us up to where we’re at today.

At the United Way, our goal every year is about $400,000. Since 1993, we’ve hit our goal each and every year. It gets harder and harder each year to reach a goal of that size, but we’ve been very fortunate to do so. I was the (DuBois) fire chief in the early 90s until 1998. The City of DuBois became an ISO Class 1 when I was fire chief. When I was done being fire chief, that’s when I ran for mayor.

We’ve done several projects in DuBois, stemming from streetscape projects, the roads and things like that. We’ve brought a lot of businesses in that time frame. Businesses have expanding, such as the powdered metal business. Our hospital did a real big expansion. Rail business went from about 50 jobs to 200 jobs. We brought in Dannon Food, which probably employs around 200 people. Paris Cleaners went from 100 jobs to 300-400 jobs. We’ve been the backbone of all those industries and they’re all over the place.

We’ve done a lot of different things in DuBois. We’ve upgraded our water system. The City of DuBois does run its own water and sewer system. So that’s just a little bit of my background.

The Express: Why should voters in the 25th District vote for you?

Suplizio: Because I’m someone who likes to get things done. We start projects and we see them the whole way through. The platform that I’m running on is ‘we get things done.’ We strive to do that. We might start of small but we end up big. And the biggest thing is that we get things done. DuBois is a prominent older community and we worry about our elderly. With my background, I have 40-years plus in the fire service and I think we really need to take a hard look at the fire service. We need to figure out how we can fund all of our volunteer firemen and firewomen. Equipment is very expensive. To ask people to keep doing fish frys and chicken barbecues and Bingos, that’s gotta be a thing of the past. We’ve gotta figure out we can help fund them, we gotta figure out how to retain our firemen and firewomen and we’ve have to figure out the training. The training is a huge part. To ask someone to work all day and train all night, it’s too much.

The Express: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your campaign?

Suplizio: The traditional stuff has been thrown out the door. You just sort of improvise. You make a lot of phone calls and you try to meet people if you can meet them. It really has thrown a curveball into the campaign.

The Express: Pennsylvania is facing record unemployment as a result of the pandemic. If elected, what will you do — down the road — to get Pennsylvania back on track?

Suplizio: I want to get down and get my hands dirty and figure out what we can do get things back together. I don’t know exactly — until I get there, get in and try to figure out what we can and can’t do. The big thing is getting the economy back up. Get these restaurants going, get the stores opened back up. That’s gotta be a key. Things like that need to happen long before I get in.

The Express: Is there anything else voters should know about you? Anything we haven’t touched on?

Suplizio: Obviously, I’m not known real well out in this (Clinton) county. We are the type of people to get things done and that’s the type of person I am. We’ve done a lot of major projects in the City of DuBois since I’ve been involved. We’ve renovated and rebuilt three major ballfields. The economic impact it has had on us has been well over $1 million a year. We built a handicapped field which is one probably one of the nicest softball fields for women in the tri-state area along with a couple of baseball fields. We host the Small College World Series in softball and baseball and it’s very, very big for our area.

I don’t need this job. I’m going to be 60 years old. I’m doing it because Sen. Joe Scarnati has done a fabulous job for the whole 25th District not just one area. He has really showed what can happen when someone puts their mind to it. He’s really represented us well. I want to continue that same thing. I want to keep things going, keep the momentum going. No matter if it’s DuBois, Brookville, Brockway, Ridgway, Lock Haven, it doesn’t matter. We want to continue those things. My position is that I want to get things done. They have a great staff there and the staff agreed to stay if I win. Keeping continuity going, that’s big.