Meet Jonathan Nieuwsma

Jonathan Nieuwsma visits the nation's capitol

(Editor's Note: One more board member for our profile series. Eventually, we will profile all our board members to show the many ways they are involved in the community.)

Many people would like to be more involved with politics, but what with kids, jobs and other extra-curriculars, they're too busy.

Then there's Jonathan Nieuwsma.

Nieuwsma is chair of the Democratic Party of Evanston's Issues Committee. He is also on the board of Citizens for a Greener Evanston and chair of their renewable energy committee. He is active in his church--First United Methodist. An engineer by training, he is a partner in a local small business, does business development for a wind energy company, and advocates for effective local and state policies as chairman of the Illinois Wind Energy Association's small wind committee. He is also an avid sailor and in 2011 he'll crew in his third Chicago-to-Mackinac race. When he has time he does Ironman Triathlons. (That's 140 miles, by the way.)

But of course he doesn't have a lot of time right now, because he and his wife have 4-month-old twins.

Jonathan is the kind of guy who diligently takes notes during the State of the Union address every year and reads the Declaration of Independence every 4th of July. So when his wife, Chris, joined him in that festive activity shortly after they met, he knew it was meant to be.

It was the Obama campaign that inspired him to jump into party politics.

Shortly after moving to Evanston in 2008, I noticed the "Evanston Ba-Rocks for Obama" banner (how could you miss it?) and walked in to volunteer. I was put to work making phone calls, helped with data management, and joined a couple of canvassing groups to Iowa. My wife and I celebrated our second anniversary by going door-to-door in Muscatine. Eventually, I moved into the office and helped organize our Get Out The Vote efforts in Iowa and Indiana. Successfully putting together 500 people to go to Indianapolis with less than a week's notice was quite an accomplishment--I'm glad we didn't lose anybody! When the Jumbotron at Grant Park on election night announced that Indiana had gone to Obama I counted that as a personal victory.