An energetic crowd of supporters at Jenny Adams’ watch party in Ravenna on Tuesday evening saw a sweeping Democratic electoral victory unfold across the state and county, which included Adams’ unseating incumbent Mike Tinlin as Portage County’s commissioner.
According to the final unofficial canvas results from the Portage County Board of Elections, Adams earned 33,308 votes to Tinlin’s 31,171.
“I feel great. I can’t believe that I won,” Adams told The Portager. “I didn’t think I could do it. I mean, I wanted it, I worked hard for it and I’m just so grateful. I’m so humbled by the support.”
Tinlin has been a Portage County commissioner since 2023.
“I appreciate the time serving the residents of Portage County,” Tinlin said. “I thank those who truly supported me. Congratulations and good luck to Jenny.”
Adams said her top priority when she assumes office on Jan. 1, 2027, is to find a solution to the county’s budget problem, potentially by cutting wasteful expenditures. Portage County’s proposed budget for 2027 is about $12 million over revenues, a problem that Adams said will require strategic planning and cuts that prioritize statutes.
There are also a number of ongoing problems in the county that she believes can be addressed while simultaneously increasing the funds for community outreach programs.
“I feel that there are some things that we need to be doing as county commissioners, specifically taking care of the folks in our community,” Adams said. “I worry a lot about our homeless population; there’s a lot of folks with mental illness that are unhoused. They don’t have any medication or access to it, or any ability to get any kind of therapies, so I feel like that’s a problem that we’re going to have to deal with."
Another is county government infrastructure.
"We have aging buildings. They’re costing a lot of money to maintain," she said. "I think we’re going to need a long-term strategy for a new administration building. We have a judge that sued the county because her courtroom is deemed too small and unsafe, Judge Paula Giulitto, so we need to figure out a building for her. We have a coroner that doesn’t have any place to perform different autopsies. He’s been relying on funeral homes and things like that, so we need to solve that problem.”
Adams also wants to make helping veterans and those with mental health challenges a priority.
“Woody Truman, who’s the veteran services director, he talks about how he’s been able to put homeless veterans in homes, but they don’t stay, because their mental health is not being taken care of,” Adams said. “So you can give them first month’s rent, you can give them a place to stay, and they don’t — they wind up back on the streets. Our homeless population, a lot of them are mentally unwell, so that would be another thing I would want to look at. We've got great community partners — Axess Family, Coleman, Townhall II — so how many more can our county partner with to provide more opportunities for housing people, treating mental illness? Those are all important things to me.”
Adams grew up in Shalersville and attended St. Joseph’s Church, where she and her family engaged in community outreach. That, she said, paved the way for a lifelong commitment to the community.
She’s currently a board member of Court Appointed Special Advocates of Portage County, which appoints advocates to represent children who have been abused, neglected or who are in the foster care system in the juvenile court system. She also volunteers at the Shepherd's House homeless shelter, a faith-based nonprofit.
Adams runs her own daycare center, Looking Glass Learning Center, which has locations in Kent and Brimfield.
In college, she worked at a national childcare center that eventually promoted her to a managerial position, where she established locations for the company. When there were no more locations to open, she assumed a management role in the tech sector.
“I went into the technology field and I worked for Cisco Systems as a product manager for 15 years,” Adams said. "Then there was a recession and I was the only person left standing in Ohio doing product management in 2009, and I decided to open my own business, so I opened my own daycare center. Eighteen years later, we have two buildings, I’ve got 42 staff members, we serve about 200 children, so I feel the skills as being an entrepreneur in the business world has given me the skillset that I would need to do this job.”
Adams believes that entrepreneurial background will be an asset to her future as commissioner.
“The county is our business and you’re managing it; you’ve got people, you’ve got money, you’ve got buildings, you’ve got all these things that come under your purview that you have to make sure are funded and available for the county,” Adams said. “You really are like a CEO of this very large company, so I built my skillset that best matches that. I guess we’ll see what happens.”