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This information is provided by the candidate
I was born in Denville, New Jersey, November 25, 1953, in a country town that was famous for its Revolutionary War sites. My parents were hard working woodworkers who had a business. In 1968 we all moved to California, where we have remained to this day.
I have been a nurse for 27 years in Orange County, LA County and Santa Barbara County. In the late 1980's I became involved in environmental issues and worked with the LA Sierra Club.
In 1997 I moved to Santa Barbara County and in 2001, started a private computer school in Solvang. It ran until 2006, then taught in a private school, starting their first computer lab and school newspaper.
The professions of nursing and subsequent teaching activities sensitized me to the medical and technological needs of people in America in these times.
In this initial commitment to be a nurse and be involved in direct patient care, I was dedicated to providing supportive care to sick individuals in terms of treating them, easing their pain, caring for them and helping them learn to get the best of service in spite of the terrible medical and insurance bureaucracy our country has developed.
But then it became increasingly apparent that some of the major, most difficult problems people faced was not only with their illnesses, but with the system and that best efforts on the individual level could not be maximally effective unless I took head-on the problems of medical insurance, insurance companies incentives and rewards to practitioners for limiting, denying or curtailing treatments to achieve cost-cutting for the companies.
In deciding to work for patients' rights and improvement of services, it became apparent that I'd need to enter the sphere of public politics and activism. I realized that this time in history - when problems were mounting, and when the public was recognizing the need for big changes in health services administration- this was a time of great opportunity for CHANGE. Now, there's a chance to get a working congressional majority -both Dems & Reps- to support necessary changes.
Being in technology, I learned about the great chasm of information forming in this century between the people who know things and the ones who do not. I taught the Internet to people so they would expand their worldviews and be more engaged in the conversation of Democracy.
Since the Bush Administration, the war, the breakdown of our constitutional rights, Presidential abuse of the balance of power in government, the increasing climate crisis, and a host of other reasons, I have been realizing that if you want change you must affect it yourself.
Inspired to public service, to the Congress where it all begins and ends for so many things.
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