Candidate for
Member of the State Assembly; District 29

John was raised in New York City in a working class neighborhood. He attended both public and parochial schools, graduating from McClancy High School in 1970. For the next few years, John worked at a variety of jobs in construction, maintenance and other fields as an unskilled laborer - including periods of employment on a dairy farm in Colorado, in a car wash, building pit silos in western Nebraska, pumping gas at a service station, as a mechanic's helper in an automobile service department. He also served as a volunteer firefighter in Crockett County, Texas.

In 1977, John joined the United States Border Patrol and was posted for duty in the border town of Del Rio, Texas. In 1986, he was promoted and transferred to Fresno, California. In 2002, he retired from the Border Patrol with nearly 25 years of continuous law enforcement experience - ten of which were spent in the position of Patrol Agent In Charge of the Fresno office. His career highlights include several performance awards, assignment to a special anti-smuggling unit, the arrest of a California murder suspect travelling the back roads of West Texas, and the arrest of methamphetamine smugglers and subsequent location of a clandestine methamphetamine lab near Langtry, Texas (west of the Pecos!).

With experience in both management and labor, John is uniquely qualified to offer insight and perspective on issues that affect both. But clearly, John believes in and is committed to working people. He has been both a Union member and officer, including service as the Vice-President of Local 2730 of the American Federation of Government Employees and rank-and-file membership in the International Association of Machinists. Since retiring, John has been active in supporting organized labor and working people in a variety of ways, both in practice and in politics.

From a business perspective, John believes that the small, family-owned business should be the focus of any efforts to bolster the economy. He scoffs at the idea of a level playing field for both corporations and mom-and-pop operations. John believes that both the financial leverage and political clout of large corporations make the need for help and special consideration for small business all the more important. He currently runs his own small website design business.

John is married and lives in Clovis where he and his family have lived for nearly 20 years. He and his wife have two grown children who attended and graduated from local public schools. He is an active member of his community and home town of Clovis. He regularly attends Clovis City Council meetings and is a graduate of the Clovis Citizens' Academy. In the last year, he has participated in the Clovis Founders Day celebration (as an actor in the Great Clovis Bank Robbery Re-enactment) and volunteered with the Clovis Children's Electric Parade. John is also an associate member of the Business Organization of Old Town.