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| Affiliation | Republican |
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| Name | Andy McKenna |
| Address | 1860 N Fremont St
Chicago, Illinois 60614, United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | [Link] |
| Born |
February 02, 1957 |
| Died |
Still Living
(67 years) |
| Contributor | None Entered |
| Last Modifed | ev
Jan 19, 2012 03:10pm |
| Tags |
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| Info | Andy McKenna is president of Schwarz Paper Co. in Morton Grove and has been a business, civic and political leader in Illinois for more than 20 years.
McKenna earned a bachelor degree in business administration from the University of Notre Dame in 1979. During his senior year, two events occurred that stimulated his interest in politics and the economy.
In the fall of 1978, Senator Chuck Percy was in a tough re-election campaign. Late in the campaign McKenna's parents hosted an event for Percy at their home. Eight United States Senators attended the event. This gave McKenna the chance to speak with each and, in particular, to spend time visiting with Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania. Heinz was the first MBA ever elected to the United States Senate. At the time, McKenna was applying to both law and graduate business schools. Heinz told him, "If you want to go into politics, go to MBA school. There are too many lawyers in politics. People need a business perspective". Upon leaving Notre Dame, McKenna did receive his MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.
In the winter of 1979, McKenna was invited to attend a conference at the White House. Jimmy Carter was President. By this administrations own words, the country's economy and spirits were in a "malaise". The Carter administration began a series of meeting with various constituencies on the changing nature of the economy. Their outreach included a meeting with the Student Government Presidents of leading Universities. McKenna was Student Government President at Notre Dame. The experience made it clear that America was in need of a new economic vision. As the Presidential campaign of 1980 showed, Ronald Reagan brought that vision to America and his ideas made life better for our country. His leadership demonstrated economic freedoms provide the flexibility that is needed for us to thrive in a rapidly changing world economy.
After completing his studies, McKenna, began his business career in the strategic planning department at Kraft Foods. Kraft was just completing its merger with Dart industries. At that point, June of 1980, this was the largest merger that had ever occurred in our country's history. This job provided a great opportunity to learn about the strength that large corporations gain when they combine. It also demonstrated that significant pressure put on global companies to grow through consolidation. While global companies have the advantage of size, they find it difficult to encourage innovation. In America, small businesses are the laboratories of the business innovation that enables our success across the world.
In 1981 McKenna left Kraft to work at Schwarz Paper Company, a company owned by his family. Schwarz was a national distributor of paper and packaging products. Under Andy McKenna, Jr.'s leadership Schwarz developed a set of services for retail chain stores that enabled it to manage their procurement and distribution of MRO supplies. Today, these services provide the company growth not only in the U.S., but in Canada, Europe and Asia..
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