Last October, I had the tremendous honor of meeting one of the most passionate public servants in the country, Spring Lake Mayor Chris Rey, a man for whom I’ll be voting in 2016 when he hopes to displace incumbent Richard Burr from his North Carolina seat in the U.S. Senate.

When I first met Mayor Rey, we were on a joint panel of community leaders, young and adult, to raise awareness of and stop youth violence in Fayetteville, North Carolina, a city with one of the highest crime rates in the country. At the end of the night, with the charisma of a man born and shaped to lead and serve, Rey told me, personally, that I would change the world; I believed him. Whatever quality Rey saw in me, he silently, proudly displayed in himself.

The next time I found myself in the same room as Rey, he was behind the podium on the same stage where, seven years earlier, I saw a young senator Obama from Illinois speak during his presidential campaign before a crowd of thousands. Donned in the ceremonial academic robes, Rey was giving the commencement speech at my sister’s community college graduation. The booming quote that made headlines was, “It will be this generation of graduates that will transform the nation.”

Education is one of the mayor’s proudest causes; in one of the worst states for teachers in the country. Rey wants to bring back the nationally renowned Teaching Fellows Program, which was axed by the North Carolina General Assembly in 2011. In fact, he serves on the board of the Public School Forum of North Carolina, the very organization that created the program.

In 2011, Rey took the reins of Spring Lake and, working with local businesses, spearheaded multimillion dollar developments in the city while the nation was still recovering from the Great Recession of 2008. Unemployment steadily fell from 10 percent when Mayor Rey was elected to 7.6 percent in 2014. In a time when our economy is finally starting to pick up again, we the people need to vote for growth. Richard Burr, on the other hand, has voted against every single piece of economic recovery or stimulus legislation that has come before him since the beginning of his congressional career over two decades ago.

As for the men and women in our armed forces, Chris Rey, a veteran himself, supports service members more than just a yellow “support our troops” car magnet. Rey has helped veterans after their time in military service, working to help them transition back into civilian life and his experience guarantees a wisdom in military decisions, something that cannot be said of career politicians.

Finally, on one of the biggest issues the country is facing today, cyber security. This issue may bring up sour memories of the infamous Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), Protect IP Act of 2011 (PIPA), Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) and the Cybersecurity Information and Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA). All of these pieces of legislation have received criticism for being too broad and often seeming as though they were written by old men who do not understand the internet. That’s because they are. Richard Burr himself even sponsored CISA, the latest horrendous piece of legislation that attempts to sacrifice freedom for security in a domain that few members of Congress actually understand, with implications that could legalize spying on US citizens’ personal data, messages and internet history. The Senate desperately needs someone who knows the language, the impact and the implications of modern cyber security as well as someone who can guarantee security without wildly sacrificing privacy with broad, overreaching legislation. Thirty-eight-year-old Chris Rey can deliver with his seven years of experience in the field. 

So, when the North Carolina general election is held on Nov. 8, 2016, I’ll be voting for a candidate who supports education, veterans and economic growth; a candidate who actually knows what he’s talking about when it comes to cyber security; a candidate who has personally inspired me and thousands of other students in my hometown and the only candidate I’ve ever known whom I could consider a real-life Leslie Knope, Mayor Chris Rey.