McDonough Brings Business Career, Conservation Passion To State Rep Bid

Kevin McDonough said he decided to run for the state rep. Dist. 30 seat long held by the retiring Bob Watson on the last night of the General Assembly’s 2012 session. 

“Watching the final session of the House that went until 3 a.m. was the catalyst that caused me to enter this race,” said McDonough. “The all-night marathon session showed the absurdity of party politics that replaced common sense.”

He is running as an independent against Democrat Mark Schwager and Republican Anthony Giarrusso for the seat long held by .

"As an independent I will not be beholden to the leadership of either party,” McDonough continued, noting that he’d instead be responsible to “my constituents of East Greenwich and West Greenwich.”

Talking to McDonough, who is 53, it becomes clear it was only a matter of time before he would make a run for office was only matter time for him. In fact, in some ways, it’s long overdue.

McDonough has loved politics since his years in junior high and high school (he attended OLM and EGHS), where he was involved in Model Legislature and Boys and Girls Nation. A graduate of Georgetown University, where he was a student at its School of Foreign Service, McDonough was in Washington D.C. during the Three Mile Island partial nuclear meltdown and got an up-close view of the workings of the capital as an assistant to the Georgetown photographer.

After graduation (he has a BS in Foreign Service), McDonough came back to Rhode Island to be with his family while his father was ill, taking a job with Roadway Express as a management trainee. After his father died, he put aside his dreams of a career in foreign service.

“The decision was made for me,” he said. “I wasn’t going to leave my mother.”

Life happened. He got married and and started working in Boston, so they moved to Cumberland, where they raised a son, now 30, and a daughter, 26.

McDonough returned to East Greenwich – and the house on Division Street he grew up in – in 2003. He lives there with his wife, MaryLee, a real estate agent at Coldwell Banker. His first marriage ended in divorce.

It was during his years in Cumberland that McDonough got involved in protecting open space, first on the Cumberland Land Trust, then on the Rhode Island Land Trust Council, including serving as president. As vice president of the Rocky Point Foundation, he worked with state and local leaders to get the bond referendum to purchase the former amusement park.
“Think out 50 years from now. Where are people going to go? Here are 120 acres on the bay within easy distance from the urban core,” he said. That said, he acknowledges that not all prime waterfront property can be preserved as open space.

“We have an environmental success at one point – Rocky Point – and we have the possibility to have an economic success at another point,” McDonough said, referring to Quonset. As sales manager for Rhody Transportation and Warehousing, which happens to be based at Quonset, McDonough has spent a lot of time thinking about how best to develop that state resource.

A recent move by the Quonset Development Corp. – choosing a Rhode Island company instead of a larger international company to manage shipping operations at Quonset – prompted McDonough (together with Geir Monsen, president of Seafreeze, another Quonset-based business) to write an op/ed denouncing the decision. (The op/ed ran in the NorthEast Independent on Sept. 27.)

McDonough also questions whether or not the state is keeping tight enough controls on the more than $500 million the state spends each year on quasi-governmental agencies (like QDC, the Airport Corp., and R.I. Resource Recovery).

“There’s nothing wrong with using the money, there just needs to be tighter controls,” he said.

When asked about other areas of state government he thinks need reform, he mentioned the pension and benefits systems for the state judiciary.

“There’s a need to rein in the budgets and salaries of the judiciary as well,” said McDonough. “They retire with six-figure pensions and it passes to their spouses ... I’m talking a cap at some level. The janitor or the school teacher … I’m not suggesting that [those pensions] should be shrunk. It’s the six-figure earners.”

McDonough said he’s “a firm believer” in public education. But, he added, “That doesn’t mean we simply throw more money at it.” He said consolidation on at least the administrative level needs to be looked at.

“I believe I bring a business sense that’s balanced with a conservation and environmental sense,” he said. “I understand business having been in business the last 30 years. I want to help facilitate successful small business by having government either help or get out of the way.”

He said some regulations are necessary. But for instance, he said, state Department of Environmental Management, is a watchdog for the state – “They should be a German Shepherd not a pitbull. They can do that in a way that is business-friendly, business-cooperative.”

McDonough said he's enjoyed getting out and meeting voters. He said he's worked with government as a citizen. Now he'd like to work with government as an elected official.

More than anything, he said, "I truly want this to be a campaign about achieving a better Rhode Island."

To read Kevin's Patch candidate survey, click here.

To read a profile of Anthony Giarrusso, click here. His Patch candidate survey is here.

To read a profile of Democratic candidate Mark Schwager, click here. His candidate survey is here.

There will be . 

You can access Kevin McDonough's candidate profile by clicking here. A debate between McDonough, Giarrusso, and Schwager is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 24, at the Varnum Armory. For more information about that event, click here.