Stepping Up To The Plate

If you mention baseball to Paul Giusti, his eyes get wide and a mile-wide grin illuminates his face. Baseball is his passion. He's been a lifelong New York Mets fan and has coached numerous youth baseball and softball teams in town. 

This fall, Giusti will step up to the plate and try to hit one out of the park in his attempt to become First Selectman. 

"It would be a remarkable opportunity to serve as First Selectman," Guisti said from his meticulous and spacious office on Locust street. "It would be an honor and a privilege to serve this town and I'd embrace it in every sense of the word." 

Giusti, who grew up in Stamford and attended , moved to New Canaan in 1997, and dove head long into becoming part of the community. Soon after arriving here, he was named to the environmental commission, on the board of New Canaan baseball and softball, and took on roles in numerous other leadership committees.

"It has been a wonderful place to live, work, and raise a family," said Giusti, who is the founder and CEO of Brookstone Homes. "It's really a place I have an enormous passion for, a love for the community." 

Unlike former slugger Mark McGwire, who refused to talk about the past, Giusti wants to embrace it when it comes to making New Canaan a better place.

"Whenever we're looking to improve our future," said Giusti, who has an MBA from Harvard,"we need to build on our past. That means we have to preserve what is special about New Canaan." 

Giusti, 53, says he will focus his concentration on three issues that are vital to the town if he is chosen as First Selectman:

• Excellence in education: "Our children have to compete not only with others in  the state and country, but around the world. We have to make sure kids have an excellent education and do it in a cost effective way."
•  Preserve the character of community: "There are a lot of things that make New Canaan special and we have to make sure we that we don't lose that." 
• Fiscal responsibility: "We need to leave to the town in better financial condition than we found it."

While baseball may be Giusti's passion, business management is his expertise. He was an executive at General Electric and The Fortress Group.

But his biggest challenge may be trying to run a town with an operating budget of $122 million, and that could be akin to the pressure of playing in Game 7 of the World Series, which Giusti feels he's more than ready to handle.

(Editor's Note: This is the first in a two-part series profiling the candidates who will meet in a Republican caucus on July 19 at 7 p.m. in the Saxe Middle School auditorium. A profile of candidate Rob Mallozzi will run on Wednesday, June 1, 2011.)