ERIN'S EARLY YEARS:  A life-long resident of Michigan, Erin Stahl has been a 15-year resident of Macomb County. For the first 5 years of her life she lived in Clinton Township.  Her family then moved to Bloomfield Hills where she graduated from Lahser High School in 1988. She was a Girl Scout, and also learned Spanish and German. She worked on stage crew for Oklahoma and West Side Story, played freshman and JV Softball, and earned her Varsity letter on the Lahser Knights ski team. Erin spent four years at Michigan State University, and graduated in 1992, with a degree in Clothing and Textiles Entrepreneurship and a GPA of 3.2. While at MSU, she was a member of Alpha Phi Omega, a unique Co-ed fraternity with a community service mission.

Erin's college experience featured high praise from her clothing design professor, for helping both the prof and her classmates learn a new and very difficult CAD program. This set the stage for her future career servicing and helping customers. She received a Masters in Finance at Walsh College with a 3.5 GPA, despite the pressures of working full time, and working part-time on City Council, plus all of her many community activities and city related activities and meetings.

A senior graduate of Landmark Education, Erin serves regularly as a graduate assistant. She was also a 15-year volunteer for the Hydroplane races, a road clean up volunteer on 16 mile, and was a Michigan Humane Society volunteer. She is currently a volunteer at the Sunrise Assisted Living Center, where her Grandmother resides, the I-94 Freeway Entrance Clean-up Coordinator through the St. Clair Shores Waterfront Environmental Committee, as well as being a volunteer in many political and non-political groups.

While still in college, Erin joined the family business, Stahls' Inc. (currently Stahls' ID Direct). Stahls' is an international manufacturing company that was established in 1932 by Erin's great grandfather and has been headquartered in St. Clair Shores for over 40 years. Erin proved that her value to the company exceeded just being "family" when she spearheaded learning the manufacturing process of part of their product line from the company's vendor in the Philippines. She was then sent "on the road" to teach the process to Stahls' other vendors in the Dominican Republic, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Erin, as an international sales and service rep for Stahls' has traveled throughout the U.S., as well as Canada, Mexico, Singapore, and South Africa, working with and serving customers.

In addition to her extensive experience as a customer service manager, she has worked in Stahls' information technologies division, and also as a Quality Control Analyst. She has worked in all areas of the manufacturing facility. She has served her company as a leader on the marketing team doing Worldwide Market Research and then later at GroupeSTAHL where she was the designer and programmer for the Global Executive's Financial Reports. Stahls' administrative office is located at 20600 Stephens, and the Production, Warehouse, Customer Service and Training Center is down the street. Stahls' also has a building on Harper and other locations in Macomb County to serve their customers world wide.

ERIN'S INTEREST IN GOVERNMENT:  Erin developed a passion for politics late in life during the 2000 Bush and Gore election.  Her ex-husband's enthusiasm for local government spurred her interest as well and led her to alternative solutions to American and world wide problems.  Because of her business experience and openness to alternative solutions, Erin brought a unique perspective and fresh ideas to the St. Clair Shores City Council when elected to office from 2003-2007.

Erin did not run for a second term because she thought she could be more effective in changing the more stifling, anti-resident, anti-constitutional, and closed government policies from the outside.

ERIN'S FOCUS FOR THE NEWLY CREATED MACOMB COUNTY EXECUTIVE POSITION: Erin believes that our executive should be a person with experience both in the Public and Private sectors.  This person should have a strong financial background and no conflicts of interest (having a government pension while being the frontline in contract negotiations, is a huge conflict of interest for one candidate).

Erin believes that far too often, staff and elected officials far too often seem to forget who their customers are! Her "customer driven" commitment will remind the entire county that they are there to serve the residents of Macomb County (including police who are there to "protect and serve" not be revenue generators to support unjust pensions). 

Erin has long been "The Voice of the People" during resident comments and then while on City Council.  She has exposed so many things that she has had to defend herself against threats of censure and jail for speaking out and successfully fought false charges against her.  (the charges were later dismissed after almost a year in court, turning down 2 plea offers, and paying $5,000 in attorney fees). 

THE FUTURE OF MACOMB COUNTY: While representing the 61,000 residents of St. Clair Shores, and working with businesses, other elected officials and staff from other municipalities, she had discovered that Macomb County has a very bad reputation of being a very difficult place to do business in.  High taxes, to support out of control government spending on contracts like pension and healthcare, along with the weakening of the US dollar, the banking and housing market is a recipe for disaster.  Erin knows that only a strong person like herself who has a proven track record is the only person to steer Macomb County into prosperity despite the challenging economic times.  She knows that we cannot continue to spend the taxpayer's dollars on "making things pretty" while the foundation crumbles.  We cannot continue to tax people out of their homes while adding more unemployed and homeless as an additional burden on the employed to pay for.  We need a different plan and Erin has such a plan.

She also knows that Sheriff Hackel is the favored candidate in this election (and Mr. Shafer as the Republican) but she has faith in the residents and taxpayers of Macomb County.  She has faith that they will make the intelligent decision and vote for the most qualified and educated candidate to get to the root of our problems and not just increase your taxes to pay for failed programs.

"For far too long, the St. Clair Shores City Council has either ignored or neglected the things that are truly important to our residents. I believe that our residents deserve high quality, cost effective delivery of vital services, the quiet enjoyment of the homes they have worked so hard to acquire, and respect from city government. I believe that the city can deliver the essential services without raising taxes or fees, and I am committed to making certain that our residents, and their property, are treated with respect."