Mayor Vargus was elected to Town Council in May 2007, and has served as Lakewood Village’s Chief Financial Officer and Chief Investment Officer since January 2008. Dr. Vargus served as Mayor Pro-tem from 2008-2014 and has served as Mayor since June 2014. While on Town Council, Dr. Vargus also served on Lakewood Village’s MDD and EDC boards.

Mayor Vargus earned his PhD in Accounting from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he also earned a MA in Economics and an MBA in Finance. He graduated with honors from The Johns Hopkins University with a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering. Prior to his academic career, Dr. Vargus was employed by Lockheed-Martin as a Senior Engineer in the advanced radar systems group. Following his retirement from Drexel University in 2018, Dr. Vargus has continued his research and teaching at Rice University and Texas State. His prior academic appointments include the University of Michigan, University of Southern California, UC Irvine, UT Dallas, Purdue University, Drexel University, GISMA, and Özyeğin Üniversitesi. He has won numerous teaching awards both nationally and internationally and was a finalist for the AAA inaugural Cook Prize for National Teaching Excellence. Dr. Vargus has received several national awards for his scholarly research, including the Outstanding Dissertation Award and the prestigious Notable Contribution to Management Accounting Research Award. Dr. Vargus purchased his Lakewood Village home site in 2003 and has been a resident since 2005.