Ted Celeste (D-OH-3)

Ted Celeste (D-OH-3)

Ted Celeste

Ted Celeste Congressional Candidate Ohio District 3

Biography of Ted Celeste from Celeste for Congress

State Representative Ted Celeste has dedicated more than 35 years of his life to public service, education, and business development, helping to improve the quality of life in Ohio and beyond.

From the Peace Corps to the Ohio House of Representatives, Ted has made public service a priority in his life. Ted completed his nine-year term on The OSU Board of Trustees, serving as its Chairman, from May 1998 to May 1999. Drawing on his years of experience in the high-tech industry, Ted pursued the creation of OSU’s Science and Technology Campus, which houses space for biotech and biomedical startup companies and helps to expand the high-growth technology-based companies connected to OSU. Ted’s efforts have linked the public and private sectors together, helping to create high paying jobs for Central Ohioans.

For the past 25 years, his business activities in Central Ohio have centered on enterprises he has founded and led, including real estate development and interactive communications marketing. He is currently President of Celeste & Associates Real Estate, Inc., a residential real estate company in Grandview Heights. As a developer and businessman, Ted served as President of National Housing Corporation, a Cleveland development firm specializing in housing for senior citizens; and as President of New Town Housing, a redeveloper of urban property in Victorian Village.

Ted’s community service activities have included serving on the Community Coordinated Child Care Committee, a forerunner of Action for Children; a member and president of Italian Village Society; a board member of Godman Guild Settlement House; President of the Grandview/Marble Cliff Chamber of Commerce; and on the business advisory council for Grandview Schools. Ted has also been active at First Community Church, serving on the Worship and Arts, Mission, and Media Councils, as a member of the Governing Board, and most recently as a participant in the creation of a new program “Faith and American Politics,” to increase our ability to speak with civility about our religious and political beliefs in small discussion groups.

Ted’s first government service came in the United States Peace Corps where he and his wife, Bobbie, taught school on a remote island in the south Pacific’s Fiji Islands in 1969 and 1970. Upon his return to Ohio, he entered state government, first serving as acting chief of the Bureau of Consumer Services in the Ohio Department of Public Welfare and later as assistant to the Director of the Ohio Department of Finance.

Ted began his political activities at an early age, campaigning for his father Frank’s Lakewood mayoral campaign when he was in the fourth grade. He was an active campaigner in the Presidential campaigns of George McGovern and Jimmy Carter. Ted ran the successful Carter Ohio primary effort and managed the field desk for Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey in the General Election, then served in the President-elect’s transition office in Washington, D.C. He also ran his brother’s campaign for Lieutenant Governor and his first campaign for Governor. Frustrated by the lack of an alternative voice in 2000, Ted ran for and became the Democratic nominee for Ohio’s U.S. Senate seat. In 2006, he convincingly won his race for State Representative in the 24th Ohio House District.

In 2008, Ted was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention for then U.S. Sen. Barack Obama.

A native of Lakewood, Ohio, Celeste earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the College of Wooster. He spent a summer of German Studies at the University of Vienna in Austria. He also took additional training in education at the University of Hawaii for the Peace Corps and at the University of Akron for the Teacher Corps. His personal interests include writing and cheering for his favorite sports teams – the OSU Buckeyes and the Cleveland Indians. Ted and his wife, Bobbie, a counseling psychologist, have lived in Grandview Heights for 26 years. They have two daughters, both of whom graduated from Grandview Heights High School, Christiana, Class of 1991, and Liz, Class of 2000. As a family they have hosted international social workers and students from Nigeria, Egypt and Japan through the Columbus Area International Program and Youth for Understanding.

Ted’s most recent awards:

• Outstanding Public Service Award – John Glenn School of Public Affairs (2011)
• 2009 Legislator of the Year – Speech Language Pathologists and Audiologists (2010)
• Autism Insurance Champion – Autism Society of Ohio (2010) (video)
• Legislative Champion for Children – Voices for Ohio’s Children (2009)
• Legislator of the Year – Public Children Services Association of Ohio (2009)
• Officeholder of the Year – Franklin County Democratic Party (2007)
• “Think Outside the Stigma” Award – Ohio Citizen Advocates (2007)