• Office Sought: Representative, Indiana (9)
• Birth Date: Dec. 17, 1945
• Web site: http://www.mikesodrel.com

Michael E. Sodrel, the son of a delivery driver, was born in Louisville, Ky., and lived as a young child in the Ohio River city of New Albany, Ind. His parents divorced when he was 2, and his mother remarried to a pharmacist. The family lived at various times in Illinois and Florida before returning to New Albany, where Sodrel graduated from high school in 1963.

He then worked in a variety of jobs, including as a truck driver and mechanic, and in 1967 married his wife, who was 18, just 19 days after they met. He served in the Indiana National Guard from 1966 to 1973, when he was discharged with the rank of staff sergeant.

Sodrel started The Free Enterprise System charter bus company in 1976 when he bought three 1949 GMC transit buses. In 1987, he bought Sodrel Truck Lines from his family. Those companies now have 600 employees with offices in Jeffersonville, Ind., and Indianapolis.

Sodrel's business success made him a multimillionaire - and he has given more than $2 million of his money to his campaigns for Congress since he first ran in 2002.

He and his wife, Keta, have a son and a daughter and seven grandchildren.