Scott tippetts

From MIDVALE (Utah) to MISIONES (Argentina);

to MARYLAND, and finally MALL of GEORGIA (Buford),

Scott’s life experiences have shaped his vision & values.

Scott Understands Hard Work: While in high school and college, I worked as a climbing arborist (‘Urban Lumberjack’), a printing press operator, a car-fleet maintenance / detailer, an industrial electronics assembler, and even a hard-rock miner underground in a private mining claim.

Environmental Justice was a bipartisan concern for many in our mostly conservative state: my hometown of Midvale was bordered by not one but TWO toxic waste sites — one of the few communities in the entire nation contaminated by two Superfund Sites (Midvale Slag, and Midvale Tailings). Winds would kick up noxious dust storms, and the closest streams that we fished in as young kids contained poisoned fish. It should be no surprise that Clean Air & Clean Water were among my earliest political interests.

Being a Research Scientist with advanced mathematical analytic experience opens a lot of doors now — but life wasn’t always easy...

I was raised in a struggling, lower-middle class family; my parents were 6th generation Idaho farmers who had moved to the city. Food-stamps, hand-me-down clothes, and odd-jobs delivering newspapers were necessary for all of us kids, contributing to the family income to survive.

• I spent years doing strenuous physical labor and other blue-collar jobs to pay my own way through college, because my parents couldn’t help.

• I have volunteered in some of the poorest villages in the western hemisphere as a church missionary in the jungles of South America.

• I have lived paycheck to paycheck while raising a young family, including nearly ten years paying off medical debt.

• I have raised a foster-child while his parents were incarcerated.

• I have frequently taken unpaid leave from work to provide daycare for a sick grandchild while his mother (my daughter) worked.

My experiences taught me EMPATHY. I understand first-hand what struggling families in Georgia are going through right now.

Raised in a Conservative home where Teddy Roosevelt’s progressive bent was admired, we all hunted, fished, camped, backpacked, and rafted whitewater.‍ ‍These activities taught us the value of wilderness, conservation, and protection of the beauty of the outdoors - values that were once bipartisan.

As a Christian missionary in Argentina immediately after the neo-fascist Galtieri regime, I was appalled to see the aftermath of state-sponsored murders, repression, and atrocities — the ‘Dirty War.’ I saw firsthand how delicate democracy can be — and how easily authoritarian regimes can take root and destroy a society. We are witnessing it here in America today.