Josh was born and raised in Council Bluffs to a working-class, Vietnam veteran family, and has lived in the city for most of his life. Raised in a "basketball family," Josh and two of his siblings went on to play basketball professionally. Josh was born with spina bifida and has been a wheelchair user and an advocate of adaptive sports for the disabled community since childhood.

 

After graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School in Council Bluffs, Josh continued his basketball career at Southwest Minnesota State University where he was the most prolific scorer in the program’s history and earned a degree in History in 2002. He later earned an MBA from Keller University. Josh has been inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame at Abraham Lincoln and Southwest Minnesota State University.

 

Josh proudly represented the United States at four Paralympics and is a three-time medalist (two golds and one bronze), most recently bringing home gold from the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games. He spent his basketball career playing professionally in Europe. After a decorated career in the sport, Josh returned permanently to his hometown of Council Bluffs. He lives here amongst friends, family, and his wife Jarolin. Jarolin is herself an immigrant, now a US citizen, working in healthcare. They live in a bilingual, multi-cultural household.

 

Josh has always strived to give back to the places that have given him so much. While playing professional basketball, Josh began as the Volunteer Director for the Ryan Martin Foundation, an organization providing disabled children opportunities to play sports for free. He was appointed to the National Wheelchair Basketball Association's High Performance Committee. In his time at Numotion, he worked to provide mobility devices and complex rehab technology to people with disabilities. In this role, Josh recognized major shortfalls in our state healthcare system - routinely failing the most vulnerable in our society. He was determined to do something about it. 

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Josh's commitment to improving the lives of our community was apparent to the people of Council Bluffs & Carter Lake. After an ultra competitive election and carrying a considerable portion of the Republican vote, Josh entered the statehouse in Des Moines and immediately got to work. On breaking the gridlock and getting results. Finding not the Republican or Democrat solution, but the solution that is best for the people of my community and the state of Iowa. 

 

By overcoming partisanship and the usual political games, Josh has managed to enact meaningful reforms for the disabled community and killed more than a few terrible bills. Josh is a strong supporter of public education and has been a very vocal opponent to school vouchers. He has been and continues to be a relentless advocate for major reform to Iowa’s healthcare system. He is committed to shaping economic policy decisions that benefit the middle class and workers rather than Wall Street and billionaire donors. Josh is committed to alleviating the economic precarity faced by increasingly cash-strapped Iowans and their families. He is a strong proponent of meaningful and effective environmental protection - especially the air, food, and water we all rely upon. Perhaps the strongest call to action of all these for Josh has been a general responsibility to provide a voice to the voiceless. To fight for those that can't afford their own lobbyists.

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He is extremely grateful for the honor and privilege to represent his hometown and looks forward to making state government work for its residents once more, one vote at a time.

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Look out for him as he makes his rounds to each door in our community!

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