Biography of Rep. Michael R. Turner

Michael R. Turner, the Ohio Third District Representative to the United States Congress, brings broad experience in leadership roles, community activities, and elected public office to his Congressional position.

A strong proponent of family values and traditional principles, Congressman Turner is a devoted husband and father. He and his wife Lori have two daughters, Jessica and Carolyn. Mrs. Turner is a professional marketer and is the sole proprietor of the Dayton-based Turner Effect.

A life long resident of Dayton, Ohio, Congressman Turner has family roots in Eastern Kentucky. His parents, Ray and Vivian, moved to Dayton in the 1950's to take advantage of the job opportunities in the manufacturing industry. Mr. Ray Turner worked at General Motors, retiring after 42 years as a member of IUE local 801; and Mrs. Vivian Turner retired from teaching in the Huber Heights School District.

Congressman Turner attended Dayton Public Schools and graduated from Belmont High School. He has a bachelor’s degree from Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio; an MBA from the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio; and a Juris Doctorate from Case Western University School of Law in Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. Turner was in private practice and corporate law for 13 years before his election to Congress.

Congressman Turner has a background of community activism with service to not-for-profit groups focusing on neighborhood concerns, zoning issues, housing code enforcement, and historical preservation. As the two-term Mayor of the City of Dayton, he was a strong proponent of neighborhood revitalization, crime reduction, increased funding for safety forces, economic development and job creation. He created Rehabarama, a private-public partnership to rehabilitate neglected housing in Dayton’s historic neighborhoods, which had significant economic impact on the region, and received national awards from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

As Mayor of Dayton, Congressman Turner established a development fund providing more than $19 million in grants for housing and job-producing projects. The development fund sparked investment which resulted in a renaissance of Dayton’s downtown, after two decades of decline, including a $130 million arts center, a minor league baseball stadium, river front development, loft and upscale housing, additional corporate headquarters, and redevelopment of a brownfield area into a tool and die business industrial park. Under Mayor Turner’s leadership, the City of Dayton had a balanced budget for all eight years of his tenure (having not been balanced for the previous five years), added 54 police officers on the street resulting in a nearly 40% reduction in police response time, and closed two adult movie theaters in residential neighborhoods, thus improving the quality of life for Dayton residents.

Congressman Turner has state-wide, national, and international experience. As mayor, he served on the Ohio Governor’s Urban Revitalization Task Force, which provided input for urban planning which led to the Clean Ohio Fund, concentrating on brownfield redevelopment and greenspace preservation. On the national level, he co-chaired the Bankers and Brownfields Task Force for the U.S. Conference of Mayors, testifying before Congress to support grant funding and liability relief to third party brownfield property owners. On the international level he pursued trade opportunities with the countries of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia as a result of the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords. He also established cultural exchange programs by developing Sister City partnerships with Holon, Israel, and Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Zagreb, Croatia.

In January, 2003, Congressman Turner was appointed to the Armed Services Committee, from which he is able to assist Wright- Patterson Air Force Base located in the Ohio Third District, and to the Government Reform Committee, which allows him to contribute his experience as mayor to government reform.

In December, 2003, Congressman Turner’s urban experience was called upon by then House Speaker Dennis Hastert who appointed him Chairman of the new Saving America’s Cities working group. The 24 Member working group was charged with developing goals and principles to help urban America by focusing on economic development issues and
encouraging private sector investment in cities.

At the beginning of the 109th Congress, Mr. Turner was appointed to serve on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, in addition to his work on the House Armed Services and Government Reform Committees.  In the 110th Congress, in addition to his work on these three committees Congressman Turner founded and is co-chair of the House Historic Preservation Caucus, the Former Mayors Caucus, and the Real Estate Caucus.  He also chairs the House Republican Policy Committee’s task force on Urban Revitalization.