Mike Schmidtler running for Lethbridge City Council

My wife and two boys moved here in 2010 after applying for a transfer to take on the role of Southern Alberta General Manager looking after our 5 operations in Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and Brooks. Now, fifteen years later, I will be retiring at the end of the month. Lethbridge has become the place we love, we will be spending the rest of our lives here and I’d like to do what I can to serve it. I’ve spent 23 years managing businesses for Lafarge (here and in Calgary). I am a consensus builder who has worked collaboratively with people in a large organization to get important things done. I think that my experience (including collective bargaining working closely with our partners in the union in Calgary and association here) would be very beneficial in a large organization like the City of Lethbridge. Running businesses taught me:

To listen for the needs of the community and local businesses
How to be efficient, find ways to do more with less
How to ask tough questions (as many have been asked of me)

During that time, I found I took the greatest pleasure in spending time with and listening to both our employees and customers. If you didn’t enjoy people in my role, then you were in the wrong job. I always felt that it was our employees that made the money, I just spent it….so I better do it wisely. Hiring to create and foster a positive work environment was always very important to me. In my 15 years in Lethbridge, I have also been:

Past President, BILD Lethbridge. During my tenure, we initiated and presented to the City Manager a tax competitiveness benchmarking study to help ensure Lethbridge outcompetes other similar-sized municipalities across Canada to attract business and jobs
Former board member of the Lethbridge Construction Association and Chamber of Commerce.
Honored with the Blackfoot name “Oohkotok” at the 2023 International Peace Pow Wow for support of the Blackfoot Lodge.

Personal background:

I started working in my father’s plumbing business on my 13th birthday (actually thought we were going fishing….true story) and have always identified with my working-class roots. I am a Civil Engineer by training (University of Calgary, 1986), but plumbing paid my way through school. Spent 10 years in consulting engineering (water and wastewater treatment) before moving on to Lafarge, where I worked for 29 years. My wife and I have been married for 35 years. Sherri has worked as an LPN at a pharmacy and leveraged her experience into her current pharmaceutical industry support role. We have two sons, both went to Lethbridge Polytechnic, one is an electrician, [and] the other a CET working as a commercial construction estimator. Because of the opportunities Lethbridge provides, they both live within a 10-minute bike ride from us, they have great jobs and have put down roots here.

Top priorities if elected:

Given my background, I’ve landed on “Concrete Leadership” as my slogan. My priorities are:

Sustainable Economic Growth:
- “Growth pays for more than growth.” Actively attract businesses that create jobs that contribute to our tax base.
- Maximize the Medicine Hat-Lethbridge corridor as Canada’s premier agricultural hub, leveraging the airport and exploring a third bridge to support it.
- Focus on responsible growth to fund social needs without overburdening taxpayers.
Fiscal Responsibility and Value for Taxpayers:
- Prioritize minimizing the cost of living, with a focus on taxes and energy costs.
- Oppose unnecessary cost increases driven by narratives or “vanity projects.”
- Challenge potentially outdated practices and prioritize efficient service delivery.
- Review City Fleet Services equipment ownership for potential savings.
- Ensure government does not compete with private industry wherever possible.
Community and Values:
- Fight to improve the lives of working-class people
- Leave it better than the way you found it.
- Champion freedom of thought and expression.
- Value diversity of ideas.
- Seek collaborative solutions to prevent conflict.

Where can people go to learn more about you and your platform?

People can get a hold of me at LethbridgeMike2025@gmail.com. In the month of April, I’ll be working with my team to create a full social media suite that includes FB (for my generation), IG, TikTok (that I’m not yet great at) and a webpage. Look for those and a campaign “launch” in May, after the Federal election. In the meantime, I really appreciate this opportunity to get my message out through Lethbridge News Now.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Just one thing to add. Coming from Calgary, a short commute was one of the most important criteria for choosing where to live. So we live in the north, a short drive to the main yard and office. I didn’t realize how important that was to the staff at the time, who never had a boss that was also a “northsider”. We’ve since come to take pride in being “northsiders”. Of course, my focus will be to apply my values and experience to represent Lethbridge as a whole, and I know we don’t have a ward system, but it would be nice to give the northside a little more representation on Council.

More coverage of the 2025 municipal election in southern Alberta here.

by David Opinko

Mike Schmidtler running for Lethbridge City Council

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