Don Cunningham has cut his teeth on overcoming tough challenges in politics and life. He’s earned a reputation as a fiscally responsible official who delivers results.

As a mayor, he brought back Bethlehem – one of Pennsylvania’s best known industrial cities – from the loss of its steel industry to $2 billion in new investment. As a state cabinet secretary overseeing nearly $4 billion of Pennsylvania’s budget, he ended wasteful business as usual and delivered half a billion dollars in savings. And, as one of only four elected executives running county governments, he turned Lehigh County into one of the state’s fastest growing and most progressive counties.

The son of a Bethlehem steelworker and grandson of union tradesmen – raised by a single father – Cunningham was born with no political pedigree or family wealth. His Irish and Slovenian great grandparents came to Pennsylvania to work in the mills of Bethlehem. The wealth they passed along were the values of hard work, integrity, the value of a dollar and respect for all people regardless of ethnicity, race or social class.

Educated in public schools, Cunningham went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from Shippensburg University, the first in four generations of his Irish Catholic family to go to college. He then worked his way through Villanova University, where he earned a master’s degree, graduating summa cum laude.

His is a Pennsylvania story. He’s spent his lifetime here; is raising his three children here; and has watched up close as Pennsylvania still struggles to change from an industrial giant to a new economy. In his home city of Bethlehem – and in the region of the Lehigh Valley – he took action to make that change happen.

He was first elected to the City Council at 28 and became the city’s youngest mayor in history at 31. He ran to drive change, reform and renewal. He inherited a city that had just lost its major employer and 25 percent of its tax base, was straddled with $350 million of debt and a broken spirit. Today, Bethlehem thrives with new jobs, two retail districts and the Money magazine distinction of being one of the 100 best places to live in America.

For his work, Cunningham has won state and national awards for innovation in government and economic development. He won the distinction of his peers and was elected president of the Pennsylvania League of Cities and Municipalities; the Democratic Leadership Council has listed him as one of the top 100 Democrats to watch in American politics. He’s long been considered a rising star in Pennsylvania politics.

Cunningham subscribes to the hard-nosed philosophy of fiscal responsibility that belies his blue collar, working class roots. Entering his 14th year in government, he’s proposed but one small real estate tax increase, which came in the wake of Bethlehem Steel’s bankruptcy.

He’s earned a reputation as an innovator who is able to do more with less but a social progressive who focuses on creating opportunity for all people in all neighborhoods. While a cabinet secretary, he oversaw the state’s minority and women business opportunity program and tripled the participation in less than three years. His county is one of the three best in Pennsylvania for preserving farms and he has launched aggressive and innovate environmental energy savings and law enforcement programs, including a groundbreaking effort to put more police on the street.

Cunningham is the rare elected leader who has delivered reform and results wherever he’s served.