By James Massara
COLUMBUS – The 87th District of the Ohio House of Representatives now has a new leader to plea its residents’ cases in Columbus.
Riordan McClain of Upper Sandusky took his oath of office this week and filled the seat that represents Crawford, Morrow and Wyandot counties and portions of Marion and Seneca counties.
The seat was vacated by former representative Wes Goodman.
McClain was appointed by the House Republican Caucus over nine other candidates applying for the position.
“I’m honored. There was a large list of candidates. I’m Honored to have been selected by the committee and I’m excited to get started and ready to hit the ground running.”
McClain is an Upper Sandusky native and 2002 graduate of Upper Sandusky High School. He then received his Bachelor of Arts from Bluffton University, where he also played baseball, in 2006 and later obtained his Master of Business Administration in 2008 from the University of Findlay.
McClain said he wants to do anything he can to keep the families in his district together.
“Overall, I’m about keeping families together and I want to address any issue that tears families apart,” McClain said. “The opioid epidemic is high on my priority list.”
He said he also wants to use his private sector background to help local businesses.
“I have a finance background in business, so tackling some of the challenges that our businesses face is something that’s on my agenda as well,” McClain said.
When appointed, McClain was working as the director of finance and customer service at Doc Investments LLC.
Being appointed by the Republican Caucus, McClain shares many of the same platform stances as his fellow conservatives.
“I am pro-life and Second Amendment and am very conservative,” McClain said. “I’m very big on personal responsibility, so I want to promote those ideals in Columbus.”
Though he does not plan to be a carbon copy of his father Jeff McClain, who held the position for the 87th District prior to Goodman, Riordan McClain said he did learn a great deal from watching his in-house predecessor.
“That’s a large part of my experience was seeing dad in the role of, what I feel like, a positive term looks like,” McClain said. “So I have some good third-party experience through that and look forward to forming my own reputation in Columbus and getting to work.”
McClain said he wants to keep his ear to the ground during his term and wants to pride his representation of his district on listening and interacting with his communities both in local governments and their private citizens.
