Candidate for
Board Member; Los Altos School District

I have lived in the Los Altos School District for over 30 years. My only daughter attended Santa Rita Elementary School and Egan Junior High School in the District, and then graduated from Los Altos High School.

Both my wife and I are products of the U.S. Public School system and have been lifelong proponents of that system. Both my wife and my daughter are teachers in the public school system. My wife is a first grade teacher at Almond Elementary, and my daughter has her Master's in Special Education and teaches severely handicapped children in Los Angeles.

My direct involvement with the Los Altos School District started when my daughter was entering kindergarten. I was a member of the Site Council at Santa Rita School, and then, when it was clear that the State of California was NOT going to properly fund our schools, I was a co-founder and first President of the Los Altos Educational Foundation, which today is a key source of funds for the District.

In 1985, I successful ran for an open seat on the Board of Trustees, and served 2 terms. Between 1993, when I retired from the Board, and 1999, I continued to be active with the District via various committees, and at Almond School as a spouse of a staff member. I was on the Board that hired our Superintendent, who has twice been named as Superintendent of the Year for the entire State of California.

In 1999, when a sitting Board member resigned, I applied for the appointment to complete the term, and have now served 2 years. During that time, we have formed a Construction Oversight Committee to help the District with the renovation project; hired two professional construction managers to oversee the individual school projects; built and are using two "camp" schools so that, during the renovation of a school, the children will NOT be on campus and subjected to the distraction and danger that the construction project would have created for them; completely restructured the original renovation plan due to significant changes in the cost of construction; and negotiated a land swap with the city so to relocate our maintenance yard (off of a school campus), and an agreement whereby the city of Los Altos will build, at their expense, gyms on both of our junior high campuses.

After working in various management positions with local software companies, and having owned my own successful software company, I am currently an independent consultant in Information Systems, which gives me the time and flexibility to truly serve the District, and to bring my mangagement and business expertise to bear on the financial and reconstruction aspects of the District, while the professional educators (Administration, Principals and Teachers) continue to provide our children with the very best education program in the State of California.