Auburn entrepreneur Sandy Toomer said it wasn't a hard decision to leave corporate life for missionary work because, for him, wealth has never been a top priority. Enough to pay the bills and enough to support the family has always been enough for him.
After working in corporate sales and rising through the ranks in his company, at the age of 35, Toomer decided there was more to life than making money. That's when he decided to become a missionary pilot.
"It was like a whole new world to me," Toomer said. "This flight school's typical first year flight student was 22 years old. I'm 35 at the time. I was the oldest guy. My head instructor was younger than me."
His age didn't stop him.
For nearly seven years, Toomer flew missionaries back and forth in the Central American country of Ecuador for the Mission Aviation Fellowship. But missionaries weren't his only passengers, he said. The majority of his flights were medevacs, flying the injured out of the jungle.
"We're not church planters," he said. "We're not pastors. I'm not a pastor. I was a pilot. ... Because of my flying, a lot of people's lives were saved. Medevacs were about 80 percent of what I did."
Toomer found his adventures in the jungle so interesting, he said, that he began a website called "The Jungle Pilot." The organization began using his website as a recruiting tool.
One summer, Toomer said he came home for a furlough. While he was home, executives in the fellowship asked him if he would like to become the webmaster for recruiting. He accepted the offer.
His new job also let him choose his new home. That new home was Auburn.
It was close to all of the flight schools he would need to visit for work, and he had friends in town, but Toomer said he chose Auburn for no other reason than he just plain liked it. The popular last name — though there's no relation — didn't hurt, either.
He continued working as the recruiting webmaster for MAF until 2009, but while he was still with the company, he decided to bring another of his passions, coffee, home to the Auburn-Opelika area. The first Toomer's Coffee Company opened in 2004 in downtown Opelika.
While in Central America, Toomer learned a lot about coffee, and he said that why he wanted to start one of the first coffee shops in the Loveliest Village. He thought the town could use a caffeine infusion.
"At that time, there wasn't a coffee shop in Auburn," he said. "There wasn't one in Opelika and there wasn't one in Auburn. ... There wasn't even a Starbucks then."
In 2013, he sold Toomer's Coffee Company, and the name, to a new owner, but he and his family still own Toomer's Coffee Roasters, which roasts artisan coffee for shops and brewers across the Southeast.
He said he became involved and interested in politics during the 2013 Auburn school property tax referendum. He was initially supportive until he said discovered some inconsistencies, and then he became concerned the increase would hurt small business.
"It wasn't realistic," he said. "When I found out what it was, I got so passionate about it. ... It would have meant [students'] rent was going to go up."
After the tax referendum, which failed 54-46 that year, Toomer said his friends in the anti-increase movement began pushing him to run for City Council, then mayor, and then the seat against then-incumbent House Speaker Mike Hubbard.
At the time, investigations into Hubbard's handing of his position as ALGOP chairman and House speaker were just heating up. He was later indicted in October 2014. He was also the guy who pushed the legislation through the statehouse to make the tax referendum possible.
"They saw something in me, and asked me if I would consider running," he said. "They said, 'You would be a good voice for the people.'"
Toomer lost in the 2014 primary to Hubbard, who then went on to win reelection despite a 23-count indictment issued against him only a month prior to his general election match up.
Now, Toomer is asking Auburn Republicans again to give him their nomination to run for Auburn's District 79 House Seat.
This isn't Toomer's first go around, and Toomer said he ran against Hubbard "before it was popular." In this year's primary, Toomer is hoping the second time is the charm.
But to get to Montgomery, Toomer will have to face off against three others — Jay Conner, Brett Smith and Joe Lovvorn — in the Republican primary to be held Sept. 13. Then, he'll have to beat Auburn student and Libertarian candidate Gage Fenwick.
Toomer on the issues
A state-run lottery
He doesn't personally gamble, but Toomer said he supports the people's right to vote on a state-run lottery.
Though the Alabama Legislature failed to pass the necessary legislation to implement a state-run lottery in the near future, the topic isn't dead forever. It's likely the legislation will be up for debate again in the Legislature's next regular session next spring.
"If this lottery is going to be put out there, it needs to be an up-down vote of the people," Toomer said. "I don't need to make that decision. Let the people vote."
Toomer said his concern wasn't the existence of a lottery, but instead was the final destination of the lottery revenue.
"My concern is not so much whether the lottery passes or doesn't pass," he said. "How that money is going to be spent, that's a little scary to me because the first thing I think we need to do is fully fund Medicaid. ... That money first needs to go to fund that, and then after Medicaid, education."
Gov. Robert Bentley's lottery plan would have the lottery revenues go directly into the state's General Fund for essential services, which provides appropriations for Medicaid, corrections and other important agencies. Toomer wants the money to go directly to the state's Medicaid Agency instead.
"I think the governor's plan to just stick it into the pot and let every body [use it], and we'll pay for that out of there...," he said. "I don't have faith in that system. It hasn't worked in the past, and I don't think it will work in the future."
Toomer said he believes the lottery will have difficulty passing because of the other gambling interests in the state.
"The other gambling interests don't want the lottery," he said. "Let the people decide, and then if it doesn't pass, then we have to figure out something else. Everybody is spending so much time spending money before we've even gotten it. I think we need to be focusing on the state budget, and then if the lottery comes in, it's just a Christmas present."
Medicaid and budget deficits
Toomer said his first priority would be fully funding Medicaid.
"A lot of people think, with Medicaid, what we're talking about is the poor people who are affected by Medicaid not being fully funded, and the Medicaid expansion, which is a whole different issue," Toomer said. "But there's a whole different side to that."
Toomer said he knew of a medical practice in Montgomery that was selling because their revenues were down 40 percent because Medicaid patients were one of the largest components of their business, and now they're gone.
"Now there are a lot of people who don't have care," he said.
Toomer said that he was concerned about "waste, fraud and abuse," but he also realizes that those issues are nation-wide problems. His priority is on fully funding the agency, he said.
"I would want to talk to some of the other people there, who have been in the trenches, dealing with this," he said. "It's a problem. There are a lot of smart guys [in the Legislature], and they can't seem to find a solution. So what we have to do is get a group of us sitting around, and we've got to figure out how to fix it as a corporate effort."
Toomer said he wasn't sure what he would do if a bill came before the Legislature to expand Medicaid in the state.
"Yeah, Medicaid expansion sounds good," he said. "It makes everybody happy to say, 'Yeah, I'm for Medicaid expansion.' That also reaches a certain group of the population who say Medicaid as it is doesn't really help them. ... But to get this stuff funded, what I would want to do first is find out why is it that it's so underfunded.
"I don't quite understand. If everybody says that it's so important, then why do we consistently end up underfunding it. Why don't we make [Medicaid] a priority? ... When you're running your household, you have to sit down and figure out, do I pay the power bill or do I get a new bicycle? Do I put food on the table or do I get a new car? I think we have spent a lot of time buying stuff in this state that we don't need."
If improving efficiency and redirecting funds to Medicaid doesn't solve the problems, then Toomer said he would consider voting to raise some taxes like the Timberlands Tax.
"You want to talk about a tax that's one of the lowest in the nation," he said. "I think the only state that has a lower Timberlands Tax than us is Mississippi. That would be some place I would look. It wouldn't make me popular with the (Business Council of Alabama), but I don't really care. We have a lot of rural land that's way, way, way under taxed."
"Why should you or I, because we've gone and worked hard and managed to provide a home for our family, have to just keep paying more and more in property taxes, when you have Alabama Power who just keeps raising our rates. They get off without paying any tax. That would be some place I would look."
Special interests in Montgomery
Toomer said Alabama's Legislature is bogged down with special interests.
"Ultimately, the issue really comes down to ... the financing," Toomer said. "Look at the candidates: I've raised about $7,000 or $10,000, Brett has raised about $10,000 and [Lovvorn] has raised $60,000, $70,000, $80,000, $100,000. I don't know how much he's raised. The reason that is, is because there are a lot of special interests involved."
According to the most recent campaign finance filings from the Alabama Secretary of State's Office, Toomer is in third in terms of money raised. Real estate broke and candidate Joe Lovvorn is in first, having raised nearly $75,000 in cash contributions by last week's campaign finance filings. Brett Smith is in a distant second, having raised more than $13,000 in cash contributions
Toomer is in third, having raised little more than $5,500 in cash contributions. He also loaned his campaign another $5,000.
"That's the big problem we have in this whole country," he said. "Lobbyists and special interests have got their PAC-backed candidates. They get into office, and then they owe people favors. So we can't just sit down as statesmen and do what's the best thing for people."
He isn't in it for the money, he said.
"Because I come from a background where money, to me, has never been a motivating factor," he said. "I am not in this for the money. They're not going to come up to me and say, 'We'll get you a new car.' It doesn't mean anything to me. It really doesn't. I really don't care. I'm 61 years old, and I've never done that, so why would I now?"
Toomer said being an elected representative is about doing what's right for the state, not doing it for money.
"Once we get enough guys in there, then we're going to do things like fixing Medicaid," he said. "We're going to fix this unemployment inequality. We're going to fix the Education Trust Fund."
Check out The Plainsman's comprehensive coverage of the House District 79 election
- Read a profile on House candidate Jay Conner
- Read a profile on House candidate Brett Smith
- Read a profile on House candidate Sandy Toomer
- Read a profile on House candidate Gage Fenwick
- Read a profile on House candidate Joe Lovvorn
- Candidates talk issues, trust in forum
- Lovvorn refunds $10,000 donation
- House candidate: 'We should concentrate on making our state better' not fighting the federal government
- Fourth Republican announces candidacy for House seat
- Third candidate announces plans to run for Auburn's House seat
- Two hopefuls announce plans to run for Hubbard's vacant seat
- Election announced to replace Hubbard
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