When Tyler Pace jumped into the race for the state Senate, his victory was all but assured thanks to the timely retirement of former Sen. Bob Worsley. Now Pace, a Mesa Republican, is forging ahead as a rare true freshman in the Senate, shaped by his business background and young family.

On your campaign website, you wrote that you don’t have any aspirations for a lifelong political career. So why jump into the fray now?

Simply put, I’ve always been an advocate for self-learning and growing. I’ve always wanted to expand my personal understanding of things. That’s led me to entrepreneurism, as well as to get my degree. Entering the political atmosphere would be an expansion of a whole new sector that, while it affects my daily life, I had — now taking my three weeks’ worth of experience — little knowledge, political naiveté, to what goes on down here. …I felt that I was capable enough to run. I had the ability, both with the flexibility in my career and financially, to be able to take the time off, and because of that, every good citizen should be involved, so I did.

Were you a political junky before running?

I follow politics closely. I read everything that comes out in the news, all different articles. I was not a PC before this, and my involvement… I didn’t sponsor anybody’s campaigns or run on those kinds of things before. In fact, I felt that added a little bit to my uniqueness, is adding a perspective that I didn’t come up through those organizations. Now, I do participate as a PC and I’m very active in my district, I had not done so before.

What’s the reality of being a senator, versus your expectations coming into the job? Is there a disconnect there?

Actually not. I’m a big believer in low expectations. There’s lots of research on that, so I never set high expectations for myself or situations or others. But the only thing that surprised me is how difficult it can be to cast a vote, despite how easy it is as an outsider to look at an issue and say, yes or no. But when you get down here in the Legislature, the amount of information you have, the amount of opinions you receive, the amount of thought that you have to put into it, the discovery of all the nuances, unintended consequences and details, makes it significantly more informed and therefore tremendously harder.

What was your first vote?

The first vote we took down here, we did the two water bills and conformity. Think about how much time it takes to have hashed that out, and still some people think they’re incomplete.

What’s your full time job?

Shortly after my time at ASU, I started a disposable medical equipment company. So we distribute anything that’s disposable used by hospitals, hospices, home health agencies, and we ship those out. We particularly stay in the state of Arizona. We do have some customers out of state, but there’s obviously regulations and restrictions on how you do that. That was first taste in how much in a daily basis you deal with government and statute. Over time, I expanded that to a handful of other businesses that I own, including a mail and ship store. I employ now dozens of people, and have small ownerships in lots of different things, large ownerships in other things, mostly in the health care industry. But each and every company that I design — because I’m not a micromanager, I don’t believe that someone needs to have a manager or a boss looking over their shoulder constantly and telling them what to do. I believe in hiring good, solid people who I can trust to be able to make those independent decisions which don’t need as much of my supervision. So that allows me to expand my portfolio of businesses and have time to come down here.

How will that experience apply to legislating?

When I come down here, I look at most bills through the eyes of, will this help people work? Will this help people have more freedom to be who they want to be? Or are we just putting this statute in or redefining this because of another reason? One of the bills I’m running is reciprocity across state lines for barbers, as well as expanding the apprenticeship program to cosmetologists. Most of my employees that work in my office don’t have college degrees, and are exceptional at what they do because of the job training and because they prioritize that skill in their life. I focus on kindness as a number one trait. So those people, they fit the job I have for them because of who they are and hopefully, as a Senate body, we look at our bills and think to ourselves – is this going to better our society?

Sounds like serving on the Commerce and Health committees makes sense. Why did you want to serve on the Education Committee?

I have a kindergartener, and I don’t think there’s anybody more invested in the K-12 system than somebody who literally has a child in kindergarten, in public school… We interviewed seven schools before I chose a public school… before we chose the one that fit our family. It involves a 27-minute drive every morning, which my family is blessed to be able to do. Others are not able to do that. And it’s 27 minutes in the opposite direction of the Capitol, so I leave at 7 a.m. and arrive at the Capitol at 9 a.m. But that’s a sacrifice I can make. So my commitment to education is twofold – both in that we want our children to succeed, but also in the fact that as an employer and as a business owner, I see what is needed to get there. And we are looking for people who develop quality soft skills – communication, heart, public speaking, socialization, creativity, art. Those are things that we are losing in our public school system. Many studies show that creativity peaks at 5 years old.

That’s depressing.

It is depressing! And that’s about the time they go to school. I could go on about education, about what I believe, but I believe that we need good options. A lot of my colleagues believe in expanding options and having more options – great. But we need to make sure that we have good options, both good public schools and good charter schools, and good options for those who choose not to participate in those. But for those who choose, like my son, who choose to participate in a public school, or those who do not have the ability like I do to drive far away, to go to an alternative public school, that they have good quality education where they live so that they can develop those skills necessary to survive in an environment where the jobs of tomorrow don’t exist today.