Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 12: Representative Marco Erickson
Representative Marco Erickson is a man with a unique story and a passion for public service. Marco’s journey is an inspiring tale of turning personal tragedy into a lifelong commitment to making a positive impact.
Rep. Erickson tragically lost his father in a drunk driving accident when he was just eight years old. The pain and trauma of that experience, coupled with witnessing the devastating effects of alcohol and drug abuse, ignited a deep desire within him to prevent others from going through the same ordeal.
Marco’s life took a different path from many of his peers who faced similar challenges. He credits this to his resilience and unwavering determination to avoid negative influences. He also acknowledges the role of healthy adults and mentors in his life who guided him towards making positive choices.
In addition to his public service, Representative Erickson is an accomplished musician and songwriter. He began performing at a young age and has written numerous songs, demonstrating his creativity and passion for the arts.
Tune into today’s episode to hear more about Marco’s journey, his work with at-risk youth, and his vision for a brighter future for Idaho.
Follow Along With The Transcript
Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Welcome. It is Idaho Main Street
Podcast, and we are here with one of our favorite legislators, representative
Marco Erickson out of district 33. So for those that don't know where that might fall on the map, this is a pretty easy one.
Where's your district?
Right in the center of Idaho Falls. Perfect. And you've been in the
Idaho House of Rep representatives for two
Terms now?
Yes. Yeah. Now
We first met,
I don't know if you remember, but when we first
Met, it was when you were
Getting ready to run for that seat. Yes,
I remember. And I remember coming
Away from that meeting thinking
Not only this might be the nicest
Guy I've ever met,
But thank you. I've never
Met a politician like this guy before. So I'm really excited about the conversations we're going to get into. The listeners today are going to get to see a whole different side of Representative Erickson. So
Let's start with
The beginning.
You kind of
Have a unique story. It grew
Up in some
Tragedy that shaped your future, lost your father when you were
Eight,
Yes. To a pretty tragic accident. If you're comfortable, share with us a little bit of that experience and how that legend of public service. Well,
It was a drunk driving
Accident and my dad was at fault.
Bad things were going on. I didn't even know some of
The things. My mom has revealed
Things
To me later in life that I didn't know as a child. But
When that happened, I was a young kid and I just wanted to help other people not experience that, not have to, not just that, but all the trauma that comes with alcohol, drugs, witnessing all those things that I got to see. So luckily I had a lot of healthy adults around
Me, a lot of opportunities. I grew up in Boise, so there were people there that were shaping me and got me
Involved in
Things that made a difference in the world. So I started doing drug prevention when I was literally around eight or nine years old, got
Involved in the community. What did that
Look like? Drug prevention at that
Age. So in that time, in that era, it was Nancy Reagan had this big just say no, it
Was her thing.
And we
Later learned
Through science that it wasn't a very effective campaign overall in the whole scheme of science, of drug change and how we do it in a community approach. But for me, it was one of the first ways that it got me engaged in that work. And so it was highly successful for me because I already didn't want to do those things ever because
Of what I
Saw growing up. And it just helped me have a good start. So we would march in parades in Meridian, we would do community cleanup projects, things like that. But you
Probably
Fell,
Especially looking back and we'll talk about what you're doing now with at risk, but you were probably right there on the edge of it could have gone either way, between being a force for good in the community or finding yourself in some serious habits, trouble, things
Like that. I don't know what was different about me. I was very resilient. I did not want to do any of those negative things. I got in a little bit of trouble. I was a rambunctious kid, no adult supervision. So we would just kind of do our thing without parents watching over us. We gotten a little bit, but not the major, but my brother and my sister, they had to do up a different direction. My cousins, a lot of our relatives, some of 'em ended up in prison. Some of them are not alive anymore. So I kind of got to see all of that. Thank goodness I made a choice to go the right direction because now I don't know the impact I've had on the world, but it's been huge. I know as there's a lot of families and people, I've made a difference in policy work and things I do every day.
Let's talk about that impact. So not only at a young age did you avoid falling in some of those pitfalls, but it shaped your career of where you are now. So we know that our legislators, we have a part-time legislature where they spend a period of time in Boise doing work, but your full-time job, you actually work with
At-risk teens, right? Yeah. I call 'em teens. We call 'em at Promise Kids at Promise because the word at risk is so negative.
So we're like Youth of Promise. These kids are amazing. People just don't always give 'em the opportunity to see, and I see their potential and I try to find that the first day, bring it out of them. And if I have so many stories, I can tell hundreds of stories about these kids and the differences their lives are. There was one particular girl I think about right now, she's still in our program, but two years ago she was vaping and causing all kinds of chaos. She looked horrible, her face, everything about her looked depressed. Now you wouldn't even recognize that that kid ever had a background like that. And she talks about it all the time. So we have several good stories like that. And what is it
That you do that helps
These app
Promise
Teens
Change
Their lives? I tell you what, the most thing we do is love them like a normal person. We not in an inappropriate way, but we just love them and we build relationships with them that they're kind of often overlooked. So we give them an opportunity to be themselves, to be loved and have adults pay attention to 'em and that are healthy adults who just say, Hey, how was your weekend? Oh, you had a hard time at home. Oh man, tell me about that. And they just get to talk and share their life with
Us. I think we all can think of people that we went to school with, people in our community, cousins, people
That
Fall in that category of they
Don't have
A community that is supporting to them necessarily or they're struggling to make that connection. And so what your folks do is you create that community where they can feel supported and loved and open to connect,
And we build a place and in the place they're structured, right? So they don't just get to come in there and just be free. We have rules and regulation and there's cameras watching that. So they know there's no way they can get away with stuff. So kids who are trying to go there and just do things that they don't normally stick around long because they know that's not going to work. We make 'em go to classes, enrichment, we build them up, we want to build their future. So we give them, I'm working with kids right now, teach 'em how to play guitar. And another group, I'm teaching how to build their own business, showing 'em how to use the Idaho
Secretary of
State's website to go and register a business, how to build a logo. And
Then
I have another group I'm working on community drug prevention efforts where next week is Red Ribbon week, October 23rd through the 31st. We go and we work with schools. We hype up the kids, we do this rally, and the community is celebrating that lifestyle of, Hey, we're happy, we're drug free. That's fantastic.
Lot of good stuff coming from there.
Talk to us a little bit about how you went
From being involved in the community of helping these kids to thinking, you
Know what?
I'm going to go put my name on some
Signs and I'm going to be a politician. I still don't call myself a politician. I call myself a statesman. I was always interested in serving the public in various capacities. And so my entire career from the time I was a little boy, the age eight, it was always a public service career. It wasn't meant to make me a lot of money. I spent 14 years working in mental health in the field, did every role I could do in drug treatment and in mental health, building my own agency, doing all that work and then watching and helping with policy consulting, going and working for the state government when I left for Nevada,
Came back to Idaho and I said, listen, it's my time to run for legislature because that was kind of the capstone of the work I was doing. If I'm in the legislature now, I can really set the policy and use all my life experience, all that gamut, the whole round circle of being a provider, helping consumers, looking out for the state's interest, understanding the federal government laws, bring all that into a perspective that just wasn't in the legislature, i's like they need me. And so that's said, I'm going to run. I'm like, why not me if America's still America, the small guy who came out of nowhere can do this, and I did. And it was such a great gift to be able to do and continue to serve
Right now. Well, and there's a lesson out there to the kids you work with and to anyone listening that it doesn't matter the home you grew up in, doesn't matter the difficulties and challenges put your mind to something. America is still America and you can be elected to public office
And you have to have good positive choices that you're making throughout your life. That was one thing when I
Decided
To run. People were asking me, do you have
Any
Demons in your closet? And you're like, no, you're not going to find anything. I didn't do the thing. I did do things that would get me in trouble. I always was a servant and I said, you could find anyone that ever knew me. You can go back in time and they're going to all say something positive about their, and I was just there
To
Serve. I still am. That's what I'll continue doing that as long as the people let me do it.
And as you serve, you have a very different approach than a lot of leaders in the political public scene. So when we
First
Met, the first thing you said is, look, I am not political. And when we were talking
Your two terms in it, you still remind me, Hey, I am still not
Political. You're a servant, you're a public servant, but you
Don't have special interests or secret
Agendas. You don't have smoke field backroom deals, and when you're in Boise,
You don't really make enemies or
Back bite any of your colleagues over there.
How has that approach been received in the
Capitol?
Yeah, it was funny because the first term, I went in there, I got feedback and people were like, we don't know what his agenda is. And they're used to having people that have either one faction or the other. Sure. I fit in with everybody. I've always been, I think what you call a floater. I fit in with the groups who are doing the work that matters that we need to do at the time. There's certain things that just need done and sometimes that's some of the things that align with one group and the other and we just go do it. That's what I'm focused on. I think the general public just wants us to do good work now, and this is no
Dig on any of your colleagues because it's just your personality and your focus has allowed you to just be very open, very loving and focusing like you say on the good work.
What are some of the
Most important things that you have been doing over in the state capital?
Well, my dream from day one was I called it the inverted V,
And
That means there was a lot more money and energy being spent on the crisis response after a problem occurred. And I wanted to invert that and find resources that could create systems. The entire system would be focused on stopping the stuff before it happens. And walk us through the
Context here. Are we talking a mental health crisis? What kind of crisis are we talking
About? Any of the crisis, so that would be substance abuse, mental health, but things that I see a lot in the world that are affecting people, so that helps us to, and education, making sure those kids are being caught early, not having people go into prison system. The trouble system, the things that we spend a lot of money in that are not always necessary, including entitlement programs. There's ways we can stop those problems. For example, project launch, which was a lot of people don't like, but I love it because it gives the opportunity for some young people to get an advanced education quicker and then they won't be needing some of those entitlement programs. They'll pay taxes. A lot of great bigs
Contribute. So your approach has been,
Rather than try
To treat the
Problems, let's
Invest more in trying to prevent some of these problems.
And so as a result, there's been millions and millions of dollars invested in mental health and into new things like assessment centers, early detection, and we're just getting started. Some of these things are just getting off the ground and it's already having results. The assessment centers across the state have already had. The last report I had, there was over 500 families served in them, and they're in the first year of implementation. Some of them just opened last month. None of them have been open an entire year yet. So it's just getting started. And as people know about these things that are early, we catch things before they start. Like
A kid
Is through it from school, they ask us for help, we go in and we help the family meet the needs of what's going on, how can we support you? Just little things like that rather than entering them into state systems like child protection serves, can we divert that? It's a possibility and if we can, we want to do that on the community level before whatever escalates to a higher, expensive,
More expensive thing. So there's a lot of fiscal conservatism in this and trying to determine how are we going to use these taxpayer dollars in a way that's actually efficient.
Yeah, because my vision, I don't see two years ahead or the next election cycle. I don't think like that. I'm thinking 15, 20 years down the road, what we do now, the policies, we can make an impact for families for generations, and someday I'll look back and go, Hey, I'll help with that. No big deal. So
You mentioned not thinking short term. Are you ever concerned that the time's going to come where you're going to get a tough election and not be able to get reelected because two years or one year came and they came after you because you were thinking far ahead?
I don't think about that honestly, because I feel that the work I do will speak for itself. And if there comes a time when the public says, you know what? We prefer some other candidate over you, I'm okay with that because I didn't get in this business to be a lifelong person sitting in that spot.
I
Did it to serve the public. And if they think my time as a servant for them is done, then that's okay with me. But I would hope they would kick me around a little bit longer. This are really awesome things we're working on. It'll takes a few years and we have to meet certain
Thresholds before
We can do the next step.
So
There's things that are five to 10 year projects, and at the end of that, then hopefully I can say, yeah, I've done all the things I set out to do.
Yeah, absolutely. I
Think that's
A brilliant outlook and I think it's refreshing and it's probably why you have so much support with the voters is because you're not pandering. You're trying to get the job done, which is great. You mentioned some things you have common. I'd love to get into those, but first you brought up
Launch,
Which we've talked
About
With some of your other colleagues. That was a big priority for the governor, right? You supported Launch, correct?
I did, yes.
Now,
How is
It working with the governor? You've
Supported him in the past and his
Elections, you've endorsed him, you've been behind Governor Little and Launch of course was a big initiative for him. What's it give us some insights into our governor?
Well, I could tell you this, when I first met him, he got stuck in a thing he didn't want to be doing, which was this crazy pandemic. And he told me, he is like, yeah, I wish I were able to do these other things. He and I were aligned on some of these projects with mental health, the behavioral health council, the things that were going, and I told him, yeah, I'm going to want to do some of the same thing. And just that first couple years, it was awkward for all of us, a
Lot of different stuff being thrown at us, and
Now we're starting to see the fruit. So what his passion was. And so I get excited when we can make a difference and we could do new things that haven't been done, that actual solve real problems, keeps a workforce here in Idaho, helps the youth get out of poverty. So many great things.
I love that. So let's talk future. What are some of the big projects that you're looking forward to
Tackling? Right now I'm working with the Millennium Funds project and we have 15 to 20 million to
Allocate across the
State Idaho, and they've been doing that for a lot of years. But last year we decided to move that back into prevention, kind of like I talked about with the Invert V. And now we're just putting a scientific approach to it. So we're really analyzing the need in Idaho and where to place the resources. That includes school resource officers and drug-free school coordinators and afterschool programs and time out of school. So we're covering and what to do with the parents and educating parents. And so there's this massive approach to that in a scientific manner. So it's not just willy nilly, we throw money here and here we actually are going to have data that's driving the decisionmaking, and it's just a better approach than in the past where they would just throw $5,000 to each district and really didn't have a way to measure the true impact to the kids. Now we're going to have better collaboration across the board with different agencies in the state and better connection to a particular goal and objective, and then there'll be more resources put into individual areas that need it specifically.
Yeah. I know before we started recording, we were talking about you had meetings this morning regarding
That
Your calendar is constantly
Full. Oh man. It's crazy. Is a busy guy who's
Got so
Much going.
I mean, I have to ask, you're a father, a husband, so you got an incredible wife and five kids at home. Is it four boys and a girl?
Yes, four boys and a girl. How do you manage all of this
Stuff? It'd still be Marco, the dad.
I have figured out how to co-mingle the different task I have. So with my wife, I'll bring her to political things and we get to spend some time together and she's there with me and it's not her favorite thing to do, but she does that. So it gives us some time. Or my kids, I have a teen center and they have classes, they're interested. So for years my boys helped build that as teen leaders got them involved in leadership. One of my sons served as a page at the House of Representative last year, so I get to find a way to be the dad and also help them in their career steps in the future. I've been able to public speak nationally with my own children At
Some
Events. We were with the US Surgeon General three years ago in Florida speaking, and my sons were with me and they were speaking as the youth representatives, and it's really just cool to get to do that as a dad.
So there's a message out there to parents to say, even though you're raising kids, there's opportunities to get involved in the community and still not sacrifice time
With your families. Also, in my church, I was able to be their young man leader, so that was really nice for years, that was my role and I've been meaning to
Ask about that. So you're a man of faith, and I was curious
What
Role your faith plays as you go to Boise and vote, and
To what extent does those beliefs
Factor in? I mean, your faith
Creates a foundation with who you are. It makes it easy to make the positive choices, and so you take them into account as part of who you are to the core. But there's a lot of factors that determine what the work we do, including some of the things our people are asking for. Mental health is a really serious problem across the nation. Healthcare in general is so expensive, right? So that's what I try to be an expert in. My master's degree in psychology, I've obviously worked in treatment space, but I've also spent a lot of time in the healthcare space and studying how to change systems.
And
So my energy has been really focused on the systems, and the more I get in there, the more people realize, oh yes, this guy knows what he's talking about, and he can do some changes without having to disrupt the services that are provided to the patients and the people receiving those services. Also taking care of the provider, the people out there doing the work. So it's a big, big, I mean, nationwide, it's a huge thing. A lot of the budget is taken up by that and not
Something one man can carry alone. So as you're in Boise, who are some of the people that you work with, whether it's on the other side in the Senate or in the house?
Who are some of the people you work with or some of
The people you look to for advice or counsel?
Well, it just depends on what the issue is. I look at the experts who know a particular topic the most, and I'll look to them. For example, there's things when you're dealing with water, that's not my expertise. There's certain people that know that Scott EdKey knows a lot about water and Stephanie Mickelson knows a lot about, so if you're dealing with a topic like that, it's better to just go to the people who live that world. And then on mental health issues, guess what they do? They send them to me. If it's an education, there's certain people that, we had people that had been superintendents of school or principals, so we talked to them and talk about how it affects their work, and you got to collaborate with people.
The picture you're painting is that the legislature might not be broken, that there actually is a lot of collaboration. And you guys
Do work together? Oh, we talk a lot. And sometimes, so for example, you'll see a committee, the Judiciary rules committee gets really busy with a lot of very tough topics, and we'll spend hours and hours behind the scenes collaborating with each other, talking, sharing conversations, and having private meetings is going over things together. That takes a lot of work, and it's all worth it because at the end when the time to come vote is, we've had a lot of contemplation time to make a decent decision, and it's not always easy.
It's
The hard part. How do you stay so
Positive? I think even through this interview as we've gone in, there's tough issues that you have to deal with. There's tough issues in the world right now. We're dealing with war in the Middle East, we're dealing with a nation's capital and Congress absolutely broken. How
Do you stay
So positive and optimistic?
I think it's part of my personality. For one, I choose the happy over sadness, but there's always someone out there that's encouraging me. Once in a while I'll get an email or sometimes a lot of emails back to back. They're like, Hey, you did great. Thank you for doing that. And those things just are much better than the negative ones. The negative ones you always think of, what's that person going through? What's in their mind? They may not know what I know. So I think of it from an empathetic standpoint rather than an angry standpoint. That's just how I get through it. Yeah,
I like that a lot.
And for those that
Don't know, you actually have unique musical talents. You mentioned before teaching some of these promised teens, the guitar.
Yes. So why don't you tell us a little bit about how you
Got into it and
Some of the gigs
I've seen you perform many times. Mostly I'll be your groupie at the fair. I always come and watch out. Oh,
You've seen
Me
At the fair. That's funny. So why don't you tell us a
Little bit about your musical talent?
When I was young, I performed in bars and I would go, I play with my uncle's band, so I'd be 14, 15, 16. This is another thing that helped me stay away from drugs. I'd see all the behavior
Of those
Adults
And go,
Man, you're 40 and you're acting like that. I don't want to do that. I want to do something different. So I performed from the time I was really little. I wrote songs. I was 15 years old when I wrote my first real song that I got to perform at a wedding. And I love songwriting and I love performance. So over time, I don't claim to be the best musician. I'm a pretty decent songwriter. People can ask me to write a song about anything, and I'm able to do that. But I like to perform and I enjoy sharing musical talent. At one time, I wanted to do that as a profession. Look, I think I had another calling in public service, and so I was grateful to go that direction too.
Yeah,
Well, it's neat. You
Get so many opportunities to still
For perform. Yeah, you have to balance your life. That's part of the, I joke about I get to dabble in some of my hobbies that I find great joy in doing and peace
And
Writing music. And I usually write 'em about, I've written songs about suicide, which is a really tough being from, and people relate to the work I written songs about foster care, things that kids go through, and then lots of fun, love songs and religious songs too. So it kind of balances it out. If
You had to pick a couple of your absolute famous, favorite, famous artist,
Who would you choose? Oh my goodness. I like the nineties country sound. So people like George Strait definitely is one of them. The
King.
Yeah. Got to have George Strait in there. He was huge influence on me. Randy Travis was another one. Okay. Big for me when I was young. Yeah, those two. And
You know the one, you left off the correct answer. Look,
Garth. Garth.
Yeah,
Garth was, I mean, I've gone to many of his shows and enjoyed them very much. He puts on a show, he does a great job, and he connects with his audience. So even though I was pretty close at the last one of Salt Lake, I tipped my hat to him. He saw me and tipped his hat back. That was the coolest thing. That's
Incredible.
So some fun
Questions that we'd love
To ask the
Guests. The
First
One, no, this is a really tough one for you. Being representing Atle Falls, we always like to ask them what's their favorite place
To eat
In their district?
Oh my goodness.
I
Always tell people, go over to the bee's knees.
Okay. Yeah,
Yeah, because it's just different. It's small. You wouldn't expect to be a restaurant there. And it's something unique to Idle Falls.
They have something on their menu that I haven't tried yet, and we may end up getting bleeped out for this, but it's called a slutty brownie, and I'm not really curious what that entails. I
Don't know. I haven't had that.
We'll
Have to share
A slutty
Brownie
Sometime. We won't tell everyone what it's like. Yeah,
I have no idea. I didn't even know they had that.
It's got to be rich. Okay, so bees knees is a big recommendation. Another question
We'd like to
Ask, if there was one
Book in the world that you'd recommend everybody ought to read,
What might
It be? Oh, I don't know. There's too many amazing books, but my favorite when I was young was the Chronicles and Arties Lewis work. There's so many parallels to the modern world and some of the things. So I just love those characters and the development of the characters from my kids. I don't know. There's so many books in our house,
Thousands
Of books in my house.
C s Lewis is a great recommendation. Now, if they're one political leader that you really look up to or try to emulate,
I never really emulated one particular political leader. I just look at the good that they're doing and I just do my thing. So I didn't really have an influencer like that. Reagan was a good, but there were some things that we could change too. So anyone
That's met you, Marco knows that that is absolutely the accurate question is there is no other political leader. You're one of a kind.
I find that interesting. I hope that in America, I know there's a ton of people just like me. They just maybe not, didn't have the courage to do that. I just stepped out and said, I'm going to try that. We're able to work together in a lot of ways across the country in a more collaborative manner. And it's civil right, and we can get a lot done, and you can be totally different politically in your views, but you could still work in America, get things done. I still believe in that sometimes. I see the two polarized sides and the struggles even in our own party sometimes. And if you work together, you can achieve amazing things and you can fix those problems.
Amen, brother. Amen. So we started this interview talking about the difficult journey you've gone through in losing your dad at a young age. Talked about how you were kind of brought into a community and how that shaped your profession and the good you're doing with these promised teens. I
Love you. You figured that out. I'm a slow learner, bro. There.
We
Talked about
Your long-term outlook, your positive approach to the legislature of stepping up and running despite your background and coming in and wanting to contribute. You talked about launch and your support of the governor and the great things he's doing. We've gone through a lot of things here from favorite books and artists to just the fact that you're different and you have a good approach in things. What would be the last thing you'd like to share? To anybody listening today,
Hey, just got to be, you are who you are, and you're enough.
You're enough. That's a great one
Representative. We're going to have to have you
Back, and we're going to have to dig in more to some of the work that you've got coming up as you tackle the mental hilt crisis and everything else going on. We really do appreciate your time today.
Thank you so much. Mark Erickson, district 33,
Straight out of Idaho falls. Appreciate being here. Till next time.
