MEET THE CANDIDATE: Kamyar Enshayan
Born in Iran in 1959, Kamyar Enshayan emigrated to the Midwest as a teenager and has lived here since 1979. He became a U.S. citizen in 1997 and, along with his wife and their two daughters, has called Cedar Falls and the Cedar Valley home for more than three decades. His academic background — agriculture and mechanical engineering degrees combined with a deep love of history, art, and literature — has shaped an unconventional but innovative approach to public service.
Kamyar spent a thirty-year professional career with the University of Northern Iowa, retiring from his position as director of the university's Center for Energy and Environmental Education in 2024. During his academic career, he found time to involve himself in local government, serving terms from 2003 until 2011 on the Cedar Falls City Council and from 2014 until 2019 on the Black Hawk County Planning & Zoning Commission. He is well versed in both city and county issues, and experienced in the process of government.
During his time at UNI, Kamyar launched the university's Local Food program in 1997 and became a driving force behind the Cedar Valley's buy-local food movement, now well into its second decade. He's been involved in the statewide Iowa Food System Coalition and is a past recipient of Practical Farmers of Iowa's Sustainable Agriculture Achievement Award. His teaching focused on environmental sustainability, energy conservation, and community food security, and he's taught generations of UNI students in his "Environment, Technology and Society" courses.
In announcing his campaign for Black Hawk County Supervisor, District 3, Kamyar said he wanted to devote his retirement to the place he's called home for more than 30 years. "I have learned that local self-governance — local people looking after the wellbeing of their home region — is the heart of our democracy," he said in announcing his run. District 3 covers Cedar Falls precincts under the county's new district-based supervisor map.
CANDIDATE PLATFORM: Kamyar Enshayan
Kamyar Enshayan's campaign for Black Hawk County Supervisor draws directly on more than three decades of work in environmental sustainability, local food systems, and civic engagement.
Kamyar has said his central political philosophy is that local people looking after the wellbeing of their own home region is the heart of democracy — a belief shaped by his eight years on the Cedar Falls City Council and another five years serving on the county's Planning & Zoning Commission.
As the founder of UNI's Local Food program and a key figure in the Cedar Valley's buy-local food movement, Kamyar has long argued that the region shouldn't have to import crops from thousands of miles away when they can be grown locally. Local production means not only fresher, healthier, more nutritious food on the table and less of a carbon footprint resulting from transportation; it means more money in the pockets of local farmers as well. The benefits are obvious and across the board. More food produced in the Cedar Valley is consumed in the Cedar Valley; more money earned in Black Hawk County stays in Black Hawk County.
Drawing on his career directing UNI's Center for Energy and Environmental Education, Kamyar has focused his public work on energy conservation and improving the environmental health of children and families across the Cedar Valley.
Perhaps because of his engineering background, Kamyar well understands and has argued that technology alone won't solve the county's problems; that vision has to come from history, art, literature, and philosophy as much as from technical expertise. Nor can county supervisors do their job in isolation. Kamyar has said repeatedly that solving the county's problems requires getting to root causes, and that can't happen without genuine community involvement and support — an approach that shaped his eight years on the Cedar Falls council and that he's said will guide his work as county supervisor.
KAMYAR ENSHAYAN & BENEFIT TO BLACK HAWK COUNTY
After eight years on the Cedar Falls City Council and 30 years at UNI, Kamyar Enshayan enters the race with an unusually deep well of community trust and name recognition, giving Black Hawk County Democrats a strong candidate in the Cedar Falls-anchored District 3.
Kamyar's campaign for the District 3 supervisor seat brings a well-known, thoroughly rooted local figure into Black Hawk County's first-ever district-based supervisor election. Kamyar's long record of community-building, from the buy-local food movement to his years of city council service, gives Black Hawk County Democrats a candidate whose appeal extends well beyond party lines, useful in a district-based system where every vote in a smaller district carries more weight.
Further, as the county navigates ongoing water quality and environmental challenges shared across Iowa, Kamyar's decades of professional expertise in environmental education give Black Hawk County Democrats a supervisor candidate uniquely positioned to speak to those issues with authority.
Kamyar's campaign runs alongside fellow Democratic supervisor candidates Will Overstreet, Bill Dotzler, Tavis Hall, and Casey Schotter, forming a complete slate across all five of the county's newly created supervisor districts for the first time. As one of five simultaneous supervisor races under Iowa's newly mandated district system, Kamyar's campaign in Cedar Falls-based District 3 will help determine how effectively Black Hawk County Democrats can adapt their organizing to the county's redrawn political map.