Meet Pete Peterson, GUO President

If you’ve seen Geist United Opposition President Pete Peterson on the local news, speaking on behalf of the Geist residents caught in the Fishers annexation, you probably picked up on his East Coast accent. He’s not originally from Geist, not even Indiana. But Geist residents sure are glad he’s called this his home.

Pete’s path to Geist started in 1979 when he left his hometown of Cheshire, Connecticut, to attend Ball State University. “I wanted to be a landscape architect and be the next Robert Trent Jones designing golf courses,” Pete said. “A couple semesters later, I transferred into the School of Business. I didn’t like all the art.”

After graduating from Ball State, Pete moved – and moved a lot. Working for an automotive OEM firm, he migrated south to Nashville, Tennessee, up north to Chicago, back to Nashville, then to South Carolina with stints in Charlotte and Greenville, and finally to Santa Anna, California. It was in sunny southern California that Pete met his wife Robin, a native of Newport Beach.

“We lived in Newport for over 10 years, and I knew it wasn’t the place to raise our kids,” Pete explained. “Personal income tax was 11% in California, we couldn’t leave our kids out in the yard and there was no sense of community whatsoever. We only knew one neighbor and we lived there for 10 years! Everybody just stayed to themselves. We had our mind made up to move.”

A long weekend trip back to Indiana made the decision on where to move a little easier.

“Robin and I came back to Indy for a 40th birthday party in Grey Eagle,” Pete recalls. “We flew in on Thursday, looked at some houses on Friday and then went to the party with all my old friends from Ball State on Saturday. Come Sunday, Robin did not want to go back.”

Fraternity friend, custom homebuilder and host of the 40th birthday party Tom Grinslade built their home in Canal Place, and the Petersons made the big move in the fall of 2002. For Pete, it was the return to his old college stomping grounds. For Robin, it was her first bout with Indiana winters.

Life was going along well for the Petersons at Geist. That is. until they received a tax assessment last fall from Hamilton County.

“They were assessing my home for $300,000 more than what I paid for it! That really got under my skin.”

A few weeks later, Pete was talking to Cambridge resident Lisa Verona at the Fishers YMCA, where the discussion centered on the Fishers annexation of Geist. “She was telling me about an email she got from Mike Fisher (Cambridge resident), who was on the Geist United Opposition board. His email led me to Rachel Quade (also in Cambridge), and she invited me to come to one of their weekly meetings right after New Years.”

Pete was elected to the GUO board that evening, and within a few weeks he was elected as President of the organization. If you spend five minutes with Pete, you will understand why.

“I’ve got an English bulldog named Linus,” Pete said. “You know how bulldogs get when they have their sites set on something; they don’t let up on it. I’m a lot like Linus.”

His bulldog tenacity is contagious. Pete has been a visible and vocal opponent of the forced annexation of Geist by the Town of Fishers. In addition to leading the bi-weekly GUO meetings, he’s also helped orchestrate a fundraising campaign that has generated over $90,000 for the anti-annexation legal fund. Ironically, the Peterson’s home is only a couple hundred yards down the street from the President of the Fishers Town Council, Scott Faultless.

“It has been great getting to know all the other GUO board members and all the people I’ve met through this process,” Pete said. “This has really brought our community together and given us all an opportunity to meet our neighbors across the lake. I wanted to live somewhere where I would know my neighbors; I just never imagined it would come about this way.”

As the leader of the anti-annexation efforts, Pete also had some advice for Geist residents:

“Don’t fall asleep. Just because it appears as though nothing is going on, Fishers isn’t going to let this go away.”

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