Episode 711: Wajahat Ali and Steven Holden for NY-24

Hello and Welcome to today's show which I think you will love because it's so great! I am happy to welcome Steven Holden for he first time and hope he will win in NY 24 on Nov 8 and Wajahat Ali is as GREAT as always

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Wajahat Ali is a Daily Beast columnist, public speaker, recovering attorney, and tired dad of three cute kids. Get his book Go Back To Where You Came From: And, Other Helpful Recommendations on Becoming American which will be published in January 2022 by Norton. He believes in sharing stories that are by us, for everyone: universal narratives told through a culturally specific lens to entertain, educate and bridge the global divides.
 

He frequently appears on television and podcasts for his brilliant, incisive, and witty political commentary. Born in the Bay Area, California to Pakistani immigrant parents, Ali went to school wearing Husky pants and knowing only three words of English. He graduated from UC Berkeley with an English major and became a licensed attorney. He knows what it feels like to be the token minority in the classroom and the darkest person in a boardroom. Like Spiderman, he’s often had the power and responsibility of being the cultural ambassador of an entire group of people, those who are often marginalized, silenced, or reduced to stereotypes. His essays, interviews, and reporting have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and New York Review of Books. Ali has spoken at many organizations, from Google to Walmart-Jet to Princeton University to the United Nations to the Chandni Indian-Pakistani Restaurant in Newark, California, and his living room in front of his three kids.

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Steve Holden has a unique combination of life experiences that position him to understand The Lake District’s challenges, and the education and skills to meet the needs of its residents. He knows rural life; he knows Army life; he knows leadership; he knows commitment; he knows compromise; he knows finance. He knows how to work hard and get things done.

​Steve was born and raised in Oklahoma, where his dad worked on Modoc Nation lands; he spent most of his childhood days with his mom and three sisters on his grandfather’s dairy farm. Like a lot of rural kids, Steve was a member of 4H and the FFA (Future Farmers of America), and while in middle and high school, he played baseball, soccer, and football.

​During his senior year of high school, Steve was the captain of his debate team, where he learned how to research important topics of the day and speak persuasively about them. He went to college in his hometown and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice while serving in the National Guard and awaiting a commission in the U.S. Army. He served a total of 22 years, including four deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan; he was on the team that captured Saddam Hussein and was later awarded three Bronze Stars. He retired as an Army Finance Corps Lieutenant Colonel.

​While a Captain in the Army, Steve went to Syracuse University and earned double master’s degrees: an MBA from the Martin J. Whitman School of Management and a MPA (masters of public administration) from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

While in Syracuse, he met the love of his life, his wife Julie, who is a proud child of a veteran and a union father who worked for GM and her mom, a local government employee. Julie served in the Army too, and is Steve’s partner in life and in love.

​When they married, they created a blended family and together raised three children to adulthood, one of whom currently serves as a Staff Sergeant in the USAF Reserves.

​Steve is now the CFO of an organization that helps military veterans receive government contracts. He's a musician (guitar, keyboards, you-name-it-he-plays-it!). He also teaches finance and mergers and acquisitions to federal government employees.

​The Holden family’s ties to New York span centuries when E.F. Holden moved to Syracuse in the mid-1800s. E.F. Holden eventually created Syracuse University’s second academic building, the Holden Observatory.

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