Successful Homer Glen businessman joins race
By Edward Felker
WASHINGTON -- When Republican county chairmen recruited Martin Ozinga III of Homer Glen to step into the race for the 11th Congressional District seat, they secured what appeared to be a wealthy, successful businessman to the ticket with little political background.
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Ozinga has never run for public office nor held an appointed political position, though he, his family and his company have been consistent political contributors. He is following something of a family tradition, however. His uncle, Frank M. Ozinga, was a state senator for 26 years. His dad, Martin II, was an Illinois constitutional convention delegate. Much of their money has gone to Republicans, but some has also gone to Democratic politicians.
Maintaining the faith
Ozinga has said he will not self-finance his campaign against the Democratic nominee, state Sen. Debbie Halvorson of Crete. That means he has to sell himself and his views to donors and the voters, and Republicans who back him say his lifelong commitment to business and his involvement in Christian schools and charities, including overseas medical relief work, make him more than qualified for Congress.
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Following in dad's footsteps
Ozinga is the third of five successive generations to name a son Martin, starting with Martin Ozinga Sr., who bought out a partner and started the family business in 1929 in Evergreen Park.
After the Depression, Ozinga's father and his three brothers served in World War II and returned from the war to the community, where Martin III was born in 1950. He is the oldest of three children, with a brother who would ultimately take over the family bank and a sister who works at a Christian adoption agency in Wheaton.
"As a kid growing up I wanted to emulate my father," Ozinga said, noting his father was a pilot in World War II (he spent the war in Florida as a flight instructor). "He was a very hard worker, not because he had to, but because he loved the work. He worked for himself and his own business, but he also worked hard at church work and community service work."
The younger Ozinga attended private Christian schools and made his own money delivering newspapers and mowing lawns. He made his way into the family concrete business at age 15 as a laborer and by age 18 he was driving concrete trucks to job sites. He dated his future wife, Ruth, and the two made an interesting pair: He the scion of a Dutch family of the Calvinist Christian Reformed faith; she the daughter of Greek immigrants who were Christian evangelicals.
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A charitable family
After graduation he was made general manager of the company, which began expanding to its present breadth of 30 locations in the Chicago area and 1,200 employees. He succeeded his father as president of Ozinga Bros. in 1985. He and Ruth had six children, all sons, and they attended Christian private schools, he said.
Meanwhile, Ozinga took on increased charity and community service roles, including serving on the school boards of four southwestern Chicago Christian private schools and Restoration Ministries, a Christian social service organization in Harvey that helps addicts, ex-convicts and teens.
Ozinga said he was amazed by the stories of visiting missionaries as a boy during church services and became interested in a more active Christian charity life as he traveled for business. His friend from his college days, Alex DeJong, an osteopathic family doctor in Orland Park, said he found Ozinga a willing participant on a site visit to a community health clinic in Uganda affiliated with the Luke Society.
The Christian society supports community-based clinics and hospitals in developing nations, and the two went to Kampala, Uganda, five times in the early 1990s. Ozinga since joined the society as a director, and with DeJong, oversees a center in India. They travel there yearly. "He feels seriously called to do this, that this is something he should do, should be involved in," DeJong said. "He's not unwilling to go into dangerous situations on behalf of people who have absolutely no resources."
This week, Ozinga traveled to Moscow to attend graduation and board meetings of the Russian-American Christian University, where he is a trustee. He is also the owner and partner in the Dr. Luca Medical Center in Romania, which operates a for-profit wing that subsidizes its charitable services.
"When I got an opportunity to get involved in some of these kinds of things, I jumped at it," Ozinga said. "It combines travel with a worthwhile project that is much more interesting than working on a suntan sitting on a beach somewhere."
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