Get to Know Joe (and Truman!)

Lifelong Democrat Joe Zepecki got his start early. Very early. 

Parents Diane Diel and Dave Zepecki instilled in Joe from a very young age the power of public service, government, and politics to make change. 

When dad ran for the Milwaukee County Board in the early nineties not-yet-teenager Joe was all in. Before his freshman year of high school started he spent the summer volunteering for longtime Congressman Jerry Kleczka. 

While attending UW-Whitewater and UW-Madison Joe was active in the College Democrats of Wisconsin and worked as a field organizer during the 2002 campaign for Wisconsin governor and as a regional field director for a 2004 presidential primary campaign across SE Wisconsin in addition to interning for then-Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton.

After college it was off to Washington, D.C. where he spent the 2004 and 2006 election cycles working on behalf of Democratic candidates across the country. It was there that the power of strategic political communications became evident as he worked to help flip legislative chambers in Iowa and Colorado, worked to elect now-Senator Chris Murphy to the U.S. House of Representatives, and more.

Between 2007 and 2008, Joe moved seven times to different states working on campaigns. From State Director of a presidential primary campaign in Nevada to Campaign Manager for a U.S. Senate campaign in Nebraska, and more, Joe learned invaluable lessons about leading campaign teams, fundraising & budgeting, working directly with candidates and their broad networks of support and so much more.

In 2009, Joe moved back to D.C. and received a political appointment from the Obama Administration to serve in a senior communications role at the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). By 2012, he had returned home to his beloved Wisconsin where he was the State Communications Director for the Obama-Biden re-election campaign before leading communications for Mary Burke’s campaign for Governor in 2014.

After a year in the private sector Joe knew that wasn’t the path for him. 

In 2016, he founded Zepecki Communications to support progressive causes and campaigns: defending and promoting Obamacare, supporting public schools, protecting our democracy, ensuring union members build Wisconsin’s clean energy future, and more. In addition to supporting strategic communications campaigns in pursuit of those goals, Joe has strived to pay it forward through support for organizations and candidates across the state through everything from trainings for EMERGE Wisconsin and Wisconsin Progress to ad hoc comms troubleshooting and support for Democratic candidates. He has also volunteered his time coaching football at the same high school he played at and youth basketball in his community. 

Now, Joe is running to serve as Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin to ensure our party grows stronger, remains united, adapts and grows, and is able to more fully take the communications fight to Trump and MAGA.

Joe lives in the Milwaukee area with his wife Melissa, their two kids, and rescue pup, Truman (named after the president).