Herb Riede

About Mayor-Elect Herbert L. Riede

Herb Riede was born in Erie, PA on January 8, 1978 to parents Herbert D. and Janet S. Riede. The geneology of both parents last into hundreds of years of Pennsylvania history, with some branches tracing to pre-colonial York County patents to land from William Penn (Paradise Township, Imler).

Herb is the youngest of eleven combined children, and his five brothers and five sisters live all over the country.

During the 80's, the Riede family typically lived their summers in the Erie area and their winters in Las Vegas, NV. Herb attendend public elementary school in Las Vegas, Nevada, and various Pennsylvania schools. Herb also attended St. Thomas Catholic School, in Corry, PA.

After his father died in February of 1990, 12 year-old "Herbie" and his mother coped with the loss through the support of family.

Inspired by his late brother David, Herb has always had an affinity for programming computers. From his first computer at age 4 to the present, he has always looked to design programs to make things easier to use, have fun with, or try new ideas.

Herb was published at age 14 in the December 1993 Issue of PCM Magazine with a program and accompanying article, "Everything's Coming up Suns..." for the sum of $50.

Later, while attending Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in the fall of 1997 with a major in elementary education and a minor in computer science, he was invited to bring a computer to a class on technology in education for him to disassemble and re-assemble while explaining each component and it's function to the rest of the class.

After a string of bad snow storms, a car failure, and a local school shooting during the string of high profile shootings, Herb was convinced by family and friends to put off what looked like an increasingly dangerous, low paying career and returned to live with family in Corry, PA, where he then met his wife, Stephanie.

In 1999, during yet another lake effect snow storm, the Riede's welcomed twin daughters Allie May Riede and Abbie Lynn Riede to their family on April 2nd.

While working jobs at little above minimum-wage in fast food and convenience stores to support a family, Herb continued creating computer programs in the hopes of creating a new, stable source of money for the family. Herb was "discovered" in April of 2000, as one of Herb's pieces of software caught the eye of the founders of a Florida dot-com. The software made their site easier to use and added many options, and by July, Herb was flown to the company's Boca Raton, FL headquarters to complete development of the program. While there, he was offered a position as Computer Programmer/Web Developer, a position that lasted until financial strains in the online advertising industry caused the company to let all of its developer staff go.

While in Southern Florida during the 2000 elections, living in Broward and working in Palm Beach County, Herb's voter registration form was mishandled by elections division personnel. Despite complaints, and receiving a notice of "late registration" two weeks before the Presidential Election, Herb was denied the right to vote for Al Gore. Ironically, the elections division personnel were Democrats.

After receiving one of the infamous dot-com pink-slip notices in July of 2001, Herb searched online job repositories for any available work, and applied to many different companies in many locations. One in particular of interest to Herb, as it would be "back home" in Pennsylvania, was at McSherrystown's own Boyds Collection. While finding a technology industry job in PA was difficult at the time, Herb applied to The Boyds Collection, Ltd. and was hired as the company's Web Developer in August of 2001. Herb has worked full-time with Boyds since.

Now in McSherrystown for over four years, Herb has begun making a home for himself and his family in this small town of 2760 near the Maryland Border.

In late 2001, Herb was welcomed into the local Democratic Party by Mary Peters Celio and Gettysburg Borough Councilman Jamie Fleet, who was then acting Chair of the party.

In the 2002 primary election, Herb was elected to the Adams County Democratic Committee by the Democrats who vote at the then-McSherrystown Fire Department Social Hall (now S.A.V.E.S. Station 1).

2003, on the other hand, was much busier. Herb was elected in the 2003 elections to Borough Council by McSherrystown's voters in November, as well as the first President of the Young Democrats of Adams County, leading up to Correspondence Secretary of the (state-wide) Pennsylvania Young Democrats, and appointed to the Executive Committee of the Adams County Democratic Party Committee and also served as the Media Director of the Draft Gore 2004 PAC.

In 2004, Herb was Sworn in as McSherrystown Borough Councilman in January. Herb had taken up the task for the party of ensuring all seats had opposition in 2004, at least in McSherrystown. Herb told the media that "(Rep. Steve) Maitland will have opposition if I had to run myself." At that same time, A firefighter and EMT from Cashtown who had run in the primary for County Commissioner the previous year, Alan Henry, also told the media he was interested. After reading about Alan Henry's interest in the Evening Sun, Herb looked up Henry's phone number and called Alan to talk about the upcoming race. Since that day in early 2004, Herb and Alan regularly meet to speak about issues concerning the county and the state.

Later in 2004, Herb engaged heavily in Alan Henry's campaign, accompanying him to most events, and on nearly every canvass. At the end of the year, Herb was made the new Campaign Chair for the 2006 campaign cycle.

Herb began Leadership Adams Hanover Leadership Training in the 2004-2005 School Year, graduating in June, 2005.

In early 2005, Mayor Cyril T. "Moe" Noel commented to fellow Borough Officials that he would not seek another term. Mayor Noel encouraged then Herb to run for Mayor. Herb then filed, and had opposition in the Democratic Primary. After winning 70% of the Democratic Primary, as well as enough write-in votes on the Republican ticket for the Republican Nomination, Herb ran unopposed in the fall, and garnered over 90% of the vote.

2005 also marked the end of Herb's term as Pennsylvania Young Democrats Correspondence Secretary. Herb ran for Treasurer, and was elected unanimously. He now serves as the only elected official on the board, and the only officer from the previous board.

Herb was also selected as Delegation Chair of the Pennsylvania Delegation to the National Convention of the Young Democrats of America (YDA) in San Francisco, California, August 3-7. This event was shown on C-SPAN and Herb cast Pennsylvania's 107 votes for candidates for the next leaders of the national youth arm of the Democratic Party, the YDA. [Pictures]

In addition to being involved with state, national and local politics, he has also used his web skills to benefit the various organizations. Herb currently hosts and administers the Adams County Democratic Committee website, the Young Democrats of Adams County Website, the Pennsylvania Young Democrats website, and designed and hosted Adams County's 2002 State House Democratic Candidate's websites for Mark Berg in the 193rd district and Bill Panebaker in the 91st, and hosted Mark Berg's 2003 website for Adams County Commissioner. He also advises and contributes to many political and non-profit organizations.