While his rivals are bringing years of political service to the forefront, millionaire Tom Knox is touting his business background as the one aspect that sets him apart from the others.

Since the inception of his campaign, Knox has been outspoken about the need to change the face of the city’s politics and the elimination of corruption from government.

“I’m running for mayor because its time to turn the page on the politics of yesterday, take the ‘for sale’ sign down off of City Hall and put our money where it belongs,” Knox has touted in one of his latest TV ads.

Despite repeated requests by The Tribune for an interview, Knox, through his surrogates, declined to comment for this article. The Tribune requested an interview with Knox over a month before the article’s original deadline. A former Knox spokesperson claimed that there was no “availability on Tom’s schedule for a profile article.”

However, a source told The Tribune that campaign advisor Joe Trippi advised Knox not to talk to the paper. Knox’s spokesman Brad Katz maintains that Trippi would not make such a suggestion.

“Joe’s a press guy, he wants Tom to have some press. There’s no way that would happen,” says Katz.

But while he may be hailed for his business savvy, Knox has been the subject of much criticism throughout his mayoral campaign.

Regardless of the criticisms, a recent Keystone Poll suggests that Knox is leading in the mayoral race.

He was widely criticized for profiting from the payday loan industry when he was chairman and CEO of the Crusader Holding Corp.

The Crusader Savings Bank, which was later sold to Royal Bank, was rather successful due to short-term payday loans that charged high interest rates to customers and could result in tax liens on homes.

“We got involved at Crusader very early on in the industry before it was really as large and as well known as it is today,” says Bruce Levy, a Knox associate and former Crusader director. “At the time, the perception was that it was a fairly wholesome industry.”

According to Levy, their law firm had approached them with a business opportunity to work with National Cash Advance, one the largest payday lenders in the country.

The federal Office of Thrift Supervision ultimately ended up cracking down on the corporation due to the bank’s payday lending practice.

“He got out of the payday loan industry after 18 months in the business – long before other banks got out of the business,” Katz said. “If he had do it over again he wouldn’t. It was a small portion of his business. You would have heard reports that he has made hundreds of millions off of this – those numbers are grossly exaggerated.”

Some have also been wondering why he has Michael Youngblood on board as a campaign aide. Youngblood is a former drug dealer who once served as City Council aide and was convicted of extorting money meant for the construction of a homeless shelter.

According to Katz, Youngblood serves as an unpaid volunteer for Knox’s campaign. He said he does not know exactly what Youngblood’s duties are.

“Tom believes that people deserve a second chance and that is why he would give someone like Michael Youngblood a second chance,” says Katz.

“People have a past – whatever it may be – and they still have to function in society. You can’t just turn a blind eye to them.”

Meanwhile some have criticized Knox for spending millions on television ads at a time when other candidates are restricted by new finance campaign laws.

“Tom is running a campaign to take the ‘for sale’ sign off of City Hall and he’s running against big boss politics. He’s running against an endless budget and big boss politics and that’s why he’s spending the money that he is spending,” said Katz.

Some eyebrows were raised when signs appeared in predominately white neighborhoods around St. Patrick’s Day that stated “Tom Knox – Irish Catholic” and “Tom Knox – 100% Irish.”

According to Katz, Knox was just acknowledging his Irish heritage for St. Patrick’s Day. Katz noted that the only ones who expressed concern about the signs were members of the press.

Knox, 66, has come a long way since his humble boyhood years growing up in Abbotsford Homes in East Falls.

Knox and his wife Linda are residents of Rittenhouse Square, but his origin is a lot more humble. He grew up in Abbotsford Homes at a time when they were owned by the federal government and geared towards the families of workers employed at nearby factories. The Knox family lived in what is now referred to as “the projects.”

African Americans were excluded from living at Abbottsford until it was taken over by the Philadelphia Housing Authority in 1953. According to Katz, the Knox family moved out of Abbottsford in 1955 and into a four-bedroom home because the family needed more space to accommodate four children, Knox’s parents and his grandmother.

After Knox’s father was injured on the job at the old Midvale-Heppenstall steel plant, he dropped out of Roman Catholic High School at the age of 16 and joined the Navy so that he could provide financial support for his family.

After being discharged from the military, Knox worked as a door-to-door salesman where he sold Fuller Brushes and insurance for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Corp.

From there he would move into the world of entrepreneurship, after founding an insurance brokerage firm that would become the Preferred Benefits Corp. The firm focused on selling health insurance and retirement plans for companies around the nation.

Knox would later garner a reputation for turning around underperforming firms, such as a group of turkey farms in the Carolinas.

He went on to purchase a Maryland-based life insurance company in 1999 and he moved it to Philadelphia, where it was renamed Fidelity Mutual Insurance Group. The company sold health plans and was subsequently merged with United Healthcare in 2004.

Art Mullin, who has been a business associate of Knox’s for 18 years, is impressed with Knox’s management style.

Mullin first started working with him when Knox was CEO of Kasser Industries. They ultimately ended up working together during Knox’s tenure as CEO of United Healthcare of Pennsylvania.

“I’ve seen him be both a good operating manager – where he might be accused of being a micromanager because he really got into the details – and I’ve also seen him be a good executive manager where he really did organize a good, strong, solid staff. He just held people accountable for them doing the things that he’s laid out for them to do,” said Mullins.

“I think his style as mayor is going to be really go out and try to recruit as good a staff as he can and then delegate authority to them, enunciate his vision, give them a specific vision and tell them to go do it.”

In 1992, Knox’s business acumen caught the eye of then-Mayor Ed Rendell, who asked him to become deputy mayor and alleviate the city’s financial deficit.

Knox worked for a $1 a year and has been credited with helping erase a quarter-billion-dollar annual budget deficit and create a surplus. He became the state-appointed executor of the Fidelity Mutual Insurance Corporation in 1993 after the firm teetered on insolvency.

Knox only served as executor for two years after it was revealed that he’d purchased stock in a company that he’d recommended as a buyer for an almost 50 percent stake in Fidelity Mutual.

Susan Rock, who works in external affairs at Temple University Health System, believes Knox has what it takes to get the job done.

Rock frequently encounters Knox at the gym and throughout recent years they have traveled in the same cultural circles.

“I know he wants it very much and I know that he will give it 110 percent because he’s a person I see of follow-through,” Rock said.

“I think he’s very direct. He strikes me as very efficient and competent. He has even a workout ethic. He just seems to follow through. He’s a very focused person.”