Three Candidates Running Unopposed for Tinton Falls Borough Council

Patch asked each of the three candidates running unopposed for borough council in tomorrow's election to provide a brief bio for voters.

Christopher Pak

Christopher Pak and his wife Dana have been residents of Tinton Falls for 17 years. They believe in their community and in its residents. They have two boys, Cameron, 13, and Kyle, 10 who both attend the Tinton Falls Public Schools.

Pak has been active with Tinton Falls Little League for as long as his boys have been old enough to play, holding the office of president of the league since 2008. Last year, he was appointed to the borough planning board.

Pak has been in banking for more than 20 years and currently holds the position of SVP, District Director for the Midtown Manhattan District of Capital One Bank. He is active in several charitable and philanthropic organizations having held leadership positions with the March of Dimes (former Chairman of the Central Jersey Chapter), Muscular Dystrophy Association (2008 Monmouth Humanitarian Award recipient), and the Steven Strobert Foundation (former Chairman of the Board and President).  

In addition, Pak is active with other community organizations including the Community YMCA, Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, American Cancer Society and Special Olympics of Jersey.

Steven Schertz

Steven Schertz has been a resident of Tinton Falls for over 18 years. He moved to New Jersey in 1993 from New York City. He has been married to his wife Anne Marie for over 17 years and has three children, Samantha, Erica and Alyssa.

Anne Marie is self employed providing accounting services to small and mid-sized companies. She is the Treasurer of the Tinton Falls PTA and has been vice president of the Atchison School for the PTA. Samantha attended Monmouth Regional High School and graduated from Rowan University with a Bachelors of Arts with a Major in English. She currently works for First Financial Credit Union based in Wall Township, NJ.

Erica is in eighth grade at The Tinton Falls School. She studies dance and piano and has been on the schools honor roll for a number of years. She is a member of the school band and has been a member of the school play. Alyssa is in fifth grade at the Swimming River School. She studies piano and plays soccer. She also studied dance for a number of years.

Upon graduating from The Bernard Baruch College of the City University of New York with a Bachelor's of Business Administration degree in Accountancy, Schertz worked for a number of companies providing Certified Public Accounting services. He earned his CPA in 1979.

Schertz has worked in various industries during his career including real estate providing commercial and residential management, construction, manufacturing, distribution and logistics, retail including grocery stores, garden centers, automobiles, printing and fulfillment. Steven also worked for a publically traded company managing all filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Currently, Steven is a partner with B2B CFO Partners, LLC, which provides Chief Financial Officer Services to small and mid-sized businesses. He works for a number of small and mid-sized privately owned businesses acting as a trusted advisor to the Owners.

He has successfully managed multi-million dollar projects including real estate development, solar power installations, software implementation, and disaster recovery.

Schertz spent six years as a member of the Tinton Falls Board of Education. One of his major accomplishments was a $10 million construction project to repair three schools. This project cost to the taxpayers was six million dollars with four million dollars in grants from the state. In April 2011, he was appointed to the Tinton Falls Borough Council.

Schertz plays golf, is a certified scuba diver, and has a small vegetable garden during the summer. He enjoys music and the beach in the summer.

Gary Baldwin

Gary Baldwin joined the Tinton Falls Borough Council in 2007, serving residents of Tinton Falls for four and one half years.   He has served two terms as council president and concurrent with his election, he was appointed to the Tinton Falls Planning Board where he currently serves. Prior to his election to the governing board, he served as a member of the Tinton Falls Zoning Board of Adjustment.

His services to the community have been at both county and state-wide level where he has been a member of the Advisory Council for the Monmouth County Division on Aging, Disabilities & Veterans' Interment, and served two terms as President of the Organization of Residents Associations of New Jersey (ORANJ), a state-wide organization representing 24 continuing care retirement communities across the state. Baldwin is currently a member of the Fort Monmouth Economic Redevelopment Authority's Veterans Staff Advisory Committee.

Baldwin currently resides at Seabrook Village, a continuing care retirement community in Tinton Falls, where he has served community residents for six years as a member of the Seabrook Resident Advisory Council. Baldwin served two terms as president of the Seabrook Council and has been an active member on various community advisory committees.

Before retiring to Seabrook Village, he was the Director of Administration for DataPoint Corporation, a computer manufacturing company, and was a corporate officer in the mortgage finance industry for HomeSide Lending, Inc.

Baldwin served his country honorably as a career officer in the United States Air Force, retiring after 26 years of active duty.

He earned a B.A. Degree in Economics from Park University in Missouri and a Masters of Business Administration from St. Mary’s University in Texas. He was married for 44 years to his late spouse, Ruth Ann, and has one daughter living in Ocean Township, NJ.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article did not give proper credit for Schertz's photo. It is Christine Findlay.