I'm Josh Wark.
I'm running for mayor to build a safe, stable, sustainable Albany for the next 50 years. Our best days should still be ahead of us, and getting there is something we do together.
I did not move here for this. I grew up on the south side of Albany, went to Oak Elementary, played football and played in a band, and got baptized in this town. When Jessica and I decided where to build our life, we chose the same south Albany streets I grew up on, on purpose. I run two small businesses here now, a family food company and a software firm, so I know what a slow permit costs a family, and I know how much a city can get done when it answers the phone.
The world is changing fast, from artificial intelligence to the economy to the way cities are run. I'm not afraid of that, and Albany doesn't need to be either. It needs a mayor who understands what is coming, plans for it, and brings the whole city along. I believe a better America starts in Albany.
What I believe
I believe that your leaders should have a vision for the future that is full of hope and honesty. The world is changing, and while we trudge along at a snail's pace, we fall further behind, asking band-aids to be permanent fixes. We cannot let the fear of the future paralyze our ability to adapt and grow to face the moment.
Rethink.
Question how City Hall does things before we spend more doing them the same way. That starts with asking the people who live with the results. We'll use modern tools and give plain answers, so your money goes further.
Rebuild.
Build for the Albany that's coming. Homes, streets, parks, and a downtown worth the drive, with residents, small businesses, and city crews all pulling the same direction.
Reunite.
Mayor is a nonpartisan office, and I'll run it that way. No party and no attacks, just decisions made on the numbers. A city our size can disagree about plenty and still take care of the same streets. Disagree with me and I still work for you.
How we'll work
- I'll show up. City Hall works for you.
- Fix what we own before we buy what we don't.
- Plain language, short answers, and numbers you can check.
- B.A., HumanitiesBushnell University
- M.A., Business ManagementLiberty University
- M.A., Public PolicyLiberty University
- Teaching Certification, Secondary English Language ArtsJohns Hopkins University
- Culinary artsEscoffier
I've been showing up since I was seven.
You don't have to take my word for who I am. The Albany Democrat-Herald started keeping the record in 1994.
Albany Democrat-Herald · June 14, 1994The watch group
I was a first-grader at Oak Elementary when I started Albany's first Junior Neighborhood Watch group. We had just moved to south Albany, my mom ran the grown-up watch on our street, and I wanted the kids to have one too. We figured three or four might come to the first meeting at our house. About a dozen did, ages three to nine, plus a few teenagers. The fire department came out and taught us stop, drop, and roll. The paper put us on the front page, and when the reporter asked why I did it, I said I liked helping people. I also said you get to drive cars a lot. I was seven, and I stand by half of that.
Albany Democrat-Herald · Dec. 27, 1994The supply drive
That winter our school skipped its holiday gift exchange. A West Albany student spending the year at a school in Empangeni, South Africa had the idea, and Oak Elementary sent books, crayons, paper, and pencils instead of trading presents. Our principal passed around snapshots of the kids who would get them. It was a high schooler's idea, not mine. I just loaded the cart, and the photographer caught me doing it. Nobody in that gym thought we were doing anything special, and that is the part that stuck. Giving was simply what this town taught its kids to do.
Mid-Valley Sports · Fall 2004The sideline
At South Albany High I was five foot four with no varsity experience, and I won the starting fullback job my senior year. Then a tackle at McNary ended my football career and put me in Salem Hospital overnight. Monday I was back at practice in street clothes, helping the two guys who took my spot get ready for that week's game, and I stood the sideline in my No. 1 uniform the rest of the season. I led the drum line. I was student body vice president, which I suppose counts as my first election. I told the reporter I would take it as it comes, and my coach told him the kids had a lot of respect for me. I have spent twenty years trying to keep earning that.
Those clippings are why the fifty-year frame is personal. Albany raised me. Jessica and I chose to come back and build our life on the same south Albany streets, and the next fifty years here is not a talking point to me. It is home. None of this qualifies me to be mayor on its own. It tells you how I will do the job, because it is how Albany taught me to do everything.
Winston.
Maltese. Born 2017, San Diego. Runs this campaign, and is not shy about it.
Winston was born in San Diego in 2017 and remains a California boy at heart, which he will make clear to anyone who brings up the rain. He came to this campaign with more relevant experience than most managers. He has worked in film, in television, and on marketing campaigns, and he sat through culinary school beside me, where he developed an extremely refined palate and a firm opinion about who should be doing the cooking.
He holds a Bachelor of Awesomeness from UCLA. He is currently weighing graduate school at Oregon State University and has asked that the campaign respect his process.
On this campaign Winston is responsible for scheduling, morale, and the strict enforcement of walk breaks. He does not take positions on city policy. He does take treats.
Twenty years of learning how big organizations run.
Classrooms, sales floors, brand teams, kitchens, a film set, a recording booth, and code. Every stop taught me something Albany can use.
Corps Member · Teach For America
Teaching came first: high school English in Baltimore, with the national corps that places teachers where they are needed most. Everything since has been a different kind of classroom.
Executive Group Leader · Target
Leading teams and daily operations inside one of America's biggest retailers. First lesson in how a big organization actually moves, and in how much the people closest to the work already know.
Marketing Manager · Procter & Gamble
Brand work on names in your bathroom cabinet right now: Crest, Oral-B, Vicks, Pepto-Bismol. Billion-dollar brands run on discipline, not luck. That era put my work on some big stages, the #LikeAGirl campaign and projects with the NFL, NASCAR, the Oscars, the Grammys, Disney and NBC Universal, and earned multiple Forbes 30 Under 30 nominations for marketing.
Marketing & Brand Management · Post Holdings
Brand management inside one of the country's biggest food companies.
Director of Marketing · Man Cave Craft Meats
Building a challenger food brand from the inside, at the scrappy end of marketing where budgets are small and shelf space is earned. I built the #BiteBack program there.
Executive Chef · Foodies For Good
Eight years of cooking for a cause, run alongside the day jobs of those years.
Head of Marketing · Turnover (2018 film)
Marketing an independent feature film with our family's The Wark Group. A different industry with the same job underneath: find your audience and earn their attention.
Brand Manager, then Senior Brand Manager · OFD Foods (Oregon Freeze Dry)
Came home. Nearly six years leading brand, marketing, and e-commerce for Mountain House, the freeze-dried food carried up trails and kept in emergency kits across the country, made right here in Albany. I created its meal donation program.
Chief Technology Officer · Adytum Agency
Our family software company. I build and run the whole technical stack: customer systems, finance and tax tools, market analytics. That is why "the city's software" is not an abstraction to me.
Chief Executive Officer · Truffle Bear Oil
Our family food company, named for a truffle-hunting Yorkie. Truffle oil out front, a small music studio in the back, and proof that Albany is a fine place to build something new.
Escoffier trained, and eight years cooking for a cause.
Man Cave Craft Eats, built all the way onto the shelf.
Life outside the resume.
Meals for more than 2.7 million families
In September 2026, Kids Against Hunger wrote to thank me for the meal donations from Man Cave, now Mighty Spark, and Mountain House. The charity credits those donations with helping feed more than 2.7 million families in the United States and around the world.
Employers and brands shown mark work history only. No employer, brand or organization named on this page endorses this campaign.