11 Oct 2026
Mark Nair - Democratic Candidate Texas 13th Congressional District
In episode 49, Tonya Kleuskens is talking with Mark Nair the Democratic Candidate for Texas 13th Congressional District.
The League of Women Voters has a 106-year commitment to non-partisan voting advocacy in the United States. We educate voters on how to register, where to vote, who is on the ballot and the public policy’s being discussed, supported or challenged in the voting cycle that we are in. We believe that educated voters are the bedrock of our democracy!
After discussion with our co-Presidents of the Amarillo LWV, I agreed to only extend invitations to the candidates for our US Congressional District 13, after the deadline for responding to the LWV Amarillo Candidates Forum, that deadline was September 21st. When it became clear that we are not having both candidates for our Forum, I sent an email invitation to both Representative Ronny Jackson and Candidate Mark Nair on September 23rd. Looking ahead to our ability to get these episodes published before early voting begins, I ask that each candidate let us know by September 28th. I also offered two dates for recording, September 29th and 30th.
Mark Nair responded quickly reserving September 30th for this episode. When I had not heard from Representative Jackson on September 28th, I called his Amarillo office to verify that they had received the invitation and Daniel passed the information to Evelyn Coleman, who responded to my invitation that day, September 28th at 6:15pm, saying that Representative Jackson was unable to make it happen, because of previous commitments. Both the invitation and responses are provided in Dive Deeper for your review! Out of caution and respect, the email address portion of the emails are intentionally excluded.
Representative Jackson has answered the questions asked of both candidates for publishing in the League of Women Voters Amarillo, Voters Guide (https://www.vote411.org/texas). Watch for a copy at local libraries, grocery stores and coffee shops, but if you miss their availability, you can read the Voters Guide on Vote411.org (http://Vote411.org), along with candidates’ responses from the additional races on our ballot. Remember Vote411.org (http://Vote411.org)
Mark Nair is a senior member of the National Academy of Inventors, a mentor for the Texas Tech Innovation Hub, a National Science Foundation iCorp mentor, and has an extensive patent portfolio on a variety of innovative technologies. He previously served on the Amarillo City Council.
Mark is a co-founder of Giant Atom Inc., Bicycle Guy Studios, MusicGram, and Oasis Microgrids. As president of Redigi, Inc, he built the world’s first used digital marketplace. Mark has taught micro and macroeconomics, app development, and web development at the college level and won the faculty excellence award at Amarillo College in 2020. He has also produced one of the internet’s earliest and largest live-streaming events for Nick Lachey and 98 Degrees, as well as producing innovative digital marketing campaigns for Willie Nelson, Stephen King, and many other well-known artists. He’s worked with Thomas Dolby and Headspace Labs on the design of early polyphonic ringtones; he worked with Nokia in Helsinki on content for their early digital smartphone prototypes; and he collaborated with Phillips Electronics in Eindhoven on smart audio waveform interpretation for digital compression and has worked with Quanta in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen, China to design a new type of e-book reader, based on dynamic LCD light-sensitive displays.
Please see Lone Star Deep Dive Episode 49 for more on Mark and additional details about this podcast.
