For more than 40 years, George V. Voinovich has strived to make all levels of government “work harder and smarter and do more with less."

Now Ohio’s senior U.S. senator, Voinovich has served in the state House of Representatives and as Cuyahoga County commissioner, Ohio lieutenant governor, mayor of Cleveland, and governor.

Voinovich’s life of public service began when he was chosen president of his class in the College of Law. Within seven years, he was elected to the Ohio House, where he co-sponsored 85 bills that became law. He returned to northeastern Ohio to serve as Cuyahoga County auditor and then as commissioner.

In 1978, Governor James A. Rhodes chose Voinovich to join his ticket as lieutenant governor. The team captured the Statehouse, but less than a year later, Cleveland was in default and Voinovich left Columbus to bring his leadership back to his hometown.

By 1987, Cleveland had emerged from debt under the two-term mayor. Voinovich worked with local businesses through public-private partnerships to revitalize the city, which was named an All-American City an unprecedented three times in a five-year period.

While mayor, Voinovich served as president of the National League of Cities, and as governor, he chaired the National Governors Association, making him the only person to have held both titles.

Governor Voinovich guided Ohio through the recession of the early 1990s. By curbing spending and balancing the budget, he led government reforms that held budgetary growth to its lowest rate in 30 years. During his administration, 600,000 new jobs were created and unemployment hit a 25-year low.

Voinovich was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1998 and was reelected in 2004, winning all 88 counties in Ohio and an unprecedented 64 percent of the vote.

In Washington, Voinovich has worked to address the challenges facing the nation in four major areas: assuring fiscal responsibility, strengthening security, enhancing competitiveness, and improving the management, efficiency, and effectiveness of the government.

Voinovich has consistently pushed for initiatives to address fundamental tax and entitlement reform, keep spending to a responsible level, and improve fiscal discipline. He serves on committees addressing appropriations, the environment and public works, and homeland security and governmental affairs.

Over the last decade, Voinovich has been involved in crafting America’s foreign and national security policies. He used his status as a five-year member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to conduct oversight of U.S. policy in the most critical parts of the world, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe. Voinovich played a leading role in strengthening and enlarging the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Alliance, and he was the only member of Congress in the room at the 2002 NATO summit in Prague where membership was formally extended to Latvia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

Of all his accomplishments, Voinovich considers his efforts to preserve and protect Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes among the most significant. He co-chairs a Senate task force on the Great Lakes and has drafted and supported legislation to ban oil and gas drilling, protect against invasive species such the Asian carp, fight “dead zones” that threaten plant and animal life, and fund cleanup of contaminated sediments. In October 2008, President George W. Bush signed into law Voinovich’s bill to ratify a bipartisan agreement among the Great Lakes states to protect the lakes through better water management, conservation, and public involvement.