Please let me introduce myself to you personally.

 

My Dad was an instructor at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas during World War II and was continuing in a civil service capacity when I was born. My Mom owned and led two private music studios while she was raising four children. She taught private music lessons all her life and taught a variety of subjects and grade levels in public schools as well.

 

Dad took a job as a technical writer for Raytheon Corporation outside Boston. In my upper elementary and early high school years I raised goats as a member of a 4-H club and competed in science fairs. I learned to drive a tractor and worked the summers mowing, raking and baling hay for the owners of open fields near us.

 

From the City of El Paso to the outer suburbs of Boston, my family moved once more, this time to a farm in Langdon, New Hampshire, Dad’s hometown. I finished high school at Bellows Falls (Vermont) High School where Dad had graduated 30 years earlier. More work waited for me at the now much larger home farm,  including making maple syrup, clearing overgrown land and cutting timber to sell to the local sawmill. I was still helping to mow, rake, bale and transport to our barns two cuttings of hay each summer as well. 

 

I earned my Bachelors degree at Antioch College in Ohio. I was a psychology major with work/study jobs as a mental hospital counselor, teacher aide, substitute teacher, and actor in a summer theater. My education continued after my teaching career started. I earned a Masters in education at Keene State College and completed a CAGS in administration at Boston University. I earned a Juris Doctor degree from Rutgers Law School. I passed the New York, Multistate and New Jersey bar exams, but chose to remain in public education rather than practice law.

 

I started as a science teacher in a New Hampshire middle school. Next, while studying at Boston University, I mentored inner city students in BU’s therapeutic teacher program. I was appointed teaching principal at a rural school in Vermont, the first principal of a new school in suburban New Jersey then principal of a K-8 school on Martha’s Vineyard Island. After another principalship in New Jersey, I was appointed superintendent in Little Ferry and later Glen Ridge, New Jersey. From there I was an assistant superintendent then superintendent for Westchester County public schools in New York. I served as superintendent in a Detroit suburb, then concluded my career as a principal at Newport Mesa Unified School District in California. I was enjoying my return to my favorite job in education as an elementary school principal when a tumor in my spinal cord ended my work in public schools. 

 

One more fantastic job in education awaited me a few years into retirement. Lynn and I homeschooled our granddaughter Emma for four years to permit her more training time in gymnastics. My best job ever.

 

I made the last three moves in my career to follow my wife’s career moves to Connecticut, Michigan and finally Mission Viejo, CA. Lynn and I met while attending a school convention in San Francisco. She owned a private pre-school and directed a Title I program for a New Hampshire school district. Lynn moved on to real estate with specialties in group moves and international employee relocation. In retirement, she designs and carries out landscape and interior home renovations. We enjoy keeping up with our four children and eight grandchildren. 

 

I have participated in community theater as an actor and director for nearly fifty years. Locally, I have acted or directed at the Attic Theater, Trabuco Presbyterian Church, Huntington Beach Playhouse, Kaiser Elementary School and Music Theater Village. I have supported music, theater, dance and art in schools and communities wherever we have lived.

 

I have written a book about the first years of my rehabilitation from spinal cord injury, Perspectives on Long Term Rehabilitation and another book about the critical point the United States was at in 2020, Agenda 2021: Saving America Saving Planet Earth. Both are available from Amazon and Audible as paperbacks, ebooks and audible books. 

 

Following my disability in 2010, I have become more informed about and more skilled in advocacy for disabled individuals. I have successfully challenged major corporations to bring about improved accommodations for their disabled employees, clients and customers. I have mentored parents, employees and others with special education, age discrimination and similar issues versus schools, employers and health care providers. Inclusion across economic strata, racial lines, religions, life styles, political loyalties, genders, sexual orientation and languages as well as reasonable accommodations for disabled persons are fundamental to any community's character.  

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After the tragic loss of one of my teachers when I was principal at Kaiser Elementary School in Costa Mesa, I was a founding member of the Los Ninos de la Calle con Wendy Foundation in 2006. I serve as Treasurer and Lynn is the Vice President. The Foundation serves homeless and poor children as well as their families in Orange County and Mexico. I lead the annual scholarship program to recognize college bound seniors from Orange County high schools with high levels of poverty who have outstanding records of community service. Learning the stories of the applicants each spring assures me that there are intelligent, resilient and dedicated young people ready to lead our communities in the coming generations.

 

After these experiences, I want all of my former students, professional colleagues and school communities as well as all of my children and grandchildren to welcome the decisions I will make to improve MIssion Viejo. I will strive to make our city more sustainable, safer, more ethical and more inclusive. I want to play a small part in giving the next generation in Mission Viejo an even better city than the one so many of us cherish today.