By L.A. Williams
Christian Action League
October 29, 2020
North Carolina voters who cast a ballot for E.C. Sykes will be putting not only a proven business leader but also a committed Christian into the Office of Secretary of State.
“He is a brother in the Lord, and he’s passionate about seeing our country return to its religious heritage. There are numerous ways he’s already been doing this, but now he hopes to do the same in an elective office,” explains the Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League. “He’s remarkably qualified, and he would bring his conservative Christian values with him into the strategic position he seeks to capture.”
Among those qualifications is Sykes’ experience as chief executive officer of two tech companies and a manufacturing firm and his former role as a group president at Flextronics, a Fortune 500 company, where he managed 35,000 people and oversaw operations in 20 countries.
A native of Durham, Sykes holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a master’s in management from North Carolina State University, where he was inducted last year into the University’s Electrical Engineering Hall of Fame. He is founder and managing partner of Aslan Ventures, a private equity real estate company that invests solely in North Carolina.
During an interview with the Rev. Creech this week, Sykes said God opened doors in his professional career and gave him and Susan, his wife of 34 years, numerous opportunities to serve others, all of which have helped prepare him for the role of Secretary of State.
The couple has two children, whom they homeschooled, and three grandchildren. In addition to teaching Sunday School and leading youth ministries, they also spent a few years as foster parents, and Sykes has served as an advisor to pregnancy resource centers and other pro-life organizations.
It was the pair’s work in the religious liberty, sanctity of life and traditional marriage arenas that opened a door for Sykes to take on a role in national politics in 2015, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.
“We were living in Texas when the Supreme Court made the decision,” Sykes says. “For me it was a kind of a milepost. I said I don’t know what I can do, but I am going to do all I can to stand for liberty and our biblical values.”
As a full-time volunteer for Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential bid the following year, he was tapped as the campaign’s Executive Director of Faith and Religious Liberty. His experience of working with faith leaders across the nation reinforced to Sykes the importance of pastors being willing to shepherd the culture and the consequences of people of faith stepping away from the public square.
Rather than continue the retreat that Sykes has seen happen in the church, he wants to put his values to work for North Carolinians and their businesses.
“People would rather have someone with business experience in the office of Secretary of State than a career politician,” says Sykes, who is running on a platform of bringing transparency and efficiency to state government with common-sense policies such as honoring the rule of law, cutting waste, limiting the size of government, and restoring citizens’ confidence in government.
A Republican, Sykes believes voters of all political persuasions will prefer a proven business leader with firsthand knowledge of the global market.
The Rev. Creech said that he doesn’t speak for the League, but he is giving Sykes his personal endorsement.
“I agree with former New York Governor Kirk Fordice, who in 1992 said, ‘The less we emphasize the Christian religion the further we fall into the abyss of poor character and chaos in the United States of America,’” Creech says. “Therefore, when Providence gives us a candidate such as E.C. Sykes, a man of faith, who is running because he believes in the importance of emphasizing the verities of the Christian faith in public life, I believe that if the individual has shown by other appointments that he can do the job, then he’s someone for whom we should cast our vote.”
A former board member of Franklin County Regional Hospital and the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce and a former deacon of Mt. Vernon Baptist Church, Sykes is also endorsed by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, the N.C. Fraternal Order of Police, North Carolina Right to Life, and former Lt. Governor Jim Gardner among many others.
Sykes and his wife were crisscrossing the state early this week, attending back-to-back events in Indian Trail, Wilmington and Asheville, to make sure voters remember his name and understand his intent to take “a defining stand for family, life and freedom.”
“Everybody likes a political outsider, because they are tired of career politicians, but by definition that means people don’t know who you are,” Sykes says. “So we’re working on getting our name out across the state. We need to talk to about 6 million people.”
To learn more about E.C. Sykes, visit www.ecfornc.com.
