About Ted Strickland

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The son of a steelworker and the eighth of nine children, Ted Strickland was born on August 4, 1941 in Lucasville, Ohio. Like many sons of Southeast Ohio,Ted never imagined that he’d be able to go to college until a high school teacher took him on a trip to the Asbury College and Theological Seminary in Kentucky. It was a visit that changed his life. Ted became the only child in his family to go on to college and has since earned two masters degrees and a PhD.

He has served as an ordained Methodist minister, a psychologist, a college professor, a member of Congress and now governor of Ohio. In 1987, Ted married Frances Smith and the couple soon settled in Southern Ohio.

Elected to Congress in 1992, Ted has represented twenty Ohio counties stretching from the Cincinnati suburbs to the suburbs of Youngstown. In Congress, he helped co-author CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program), a federal initiative that provides health insurance to millions of children nationwide.

As governor, he has continued to stand up for Ohio families. He’s passed legislation guaranteeing health care access for all Ohio children, and he's working to make that happen. He signed a 1.57 billion dollar stimulus package aimed at creating tens of thousands of new jobs in rebuilding Ohio communities, producing advanced energy and spurring life-saving medical research. And he also introduced and signed legislation that mandates that 25 percent of all Ohio’s electricity use come from advanced energy sources by 2025 – which will make Ohio the 3rd largest user of renewable energy in the nation.

He has passed two balanced budgets, without raising taxes. And, in July 2009, he signed a new education reform bill that makes Ohio's funding system constitutional, and reforms the way our schools teach in order to prepare Ohio young people for the new kinds of jobs our economy is creating.