My parents are Ron and Cheryl McGlothlin. We moved to San Marcos in 1980 when my dad opened a carpet store on the corner of Hopkins and Guadalupe. I had Mrs. Rylander for kindergarten at Crockett before going on to attend Bowie, Wonderland, Lamar, Goodnight, and San Marcos High School. While at San Marcos High School, I met my wife and played a lot of tennis for Coach Owens. I graduated from San Marcos High School in 1994, and started college at UT-Austin that fall. I earned a BA in History from the UT-Austin. Marissa and I had our first son, Owen, during my last semester at UT, so I had to get a job the day I finished classes. I was hired as a territory manager for Shaw Industries that became a part of Berkshire Hathaway while I worked for them. In 2001, I returned to San Marcos to work with my parents at the carpet store. While I was there, Marissa and I had our first daughter, Veronica, and I earned my MBA from Texas State. My family sold the carpet store in 2002 and I decided to go to law school. I graduated cum laude with my JD from St. Mary’s University in 2005, along with our third child, Connor.  After working for a big firm in San Antonio for four years, I opened my own law firm in San Marcos in 2012.  That same year, my wife and I adopted our youngest daughter, Aseres, from Ethiopia.  All four of our kids either graduated from SMHS or attend SMCISD right now.

Marissa and I also served in a variety of ways as partners at River Stone Community Church, where I served as elder until 2017. I previously served on the City of San Marcos Ethics Review Commission, and I am currently on the Credentials Committee for Central Texas Medical Center.

Growing up, I really didn’t understand the impact of the fact that 60% of my classmates couldn’t afford to pay full price for their lunch, but over the last few years, my wife and I spent time working to help our neighbors who are want for the same opportunities we have been given. We saw first-hand many structural roadblocks that exist in our hometown that keep generations in poverty. This prompted me to cofound Mission San Marcos with the goal of empowering our poorer neighbors. With the help of many folks, we matched over 150 children at Travis with a mentor from the community. We also partnered with Mike Boone and School Nutrition to provide food and a summer day camp in some of our poorer neighborhoods, and we started Affordable Christmas in 2013 to help struggling parents buy their children presents.

My wife and I will continue to serve as we can be useful whether I am elected or not, but programs that help those in poverty are a never-ending need unless they are paired with initiatives to get folks out of poverty. There is no doubt that a great education is the single greatest vehicle for a young person today to escape poverty. That makes the local school district the very frontline of our community’s battle with poverty – the engine of our town’s progress. I think my background and skills allow me to serve effectively on the San Marcos CISD school board.  Since I came on the Board in 2015, we have put a new focus on academic achievement for all of our kids, put resources into the classroom by preventing class sizes from ballooning, given our teachers the largest compensation increase in any three-year period in the history of the district, and hired a strong cabinet of top administrators with broad experience in curriculum.