Candidate for
Council Member; City of Los Alamitos

I was born in 1950 at the old Queen of The Angels Hospital in Los Angeles, now reborn as the "Dream Center," a community outreach of a Los Angeles Church. My mother was born in Dunsmuir in Northern California, and my father was born in Tibet to parents who were serving as missionaries but were from California. That makes me a second generation California native. In fact, my grandmother was a UC Berkley graduate (just "UC" back then), my mother a UCLA graduate (like myself), and my father graduated from Cal Tech under the GI program after serving with the Army Air Corps in World War II.

In 1951 my parents became proud owners of their first and only home in Lakewood, where I graduated from Lakewood High in 1968. After two years at Biola University in La Mirada I graduated from UCLA in 1972, then earned a secondary teaching credential from UCLA's renowned School of Education in 1973.

I paid my own way through college working odd jobs including gardening in the estates of Bel Air and serving as the resident manager at the Westwood Village Mortuary, best known as Marilyn Monroe's final resting place.

Barbara and I were married at the First Baptist Church of Lakewood, where we had met, in June of 1973. I taught for eight years, gradually phasing into a full time real estate career as I became frustrated with the bureaucratic inefficiency of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

I have my own fond memories of Los Alamitos, traveling down Katella in the 1950s from my childhood home in Lakewood to visit "Gramps and Grandmuddy" at "the farm," their 3/4 acre orange grove and 1 bedroom retirement home in Garden Grove.

Barb and I didn't buy here until 1988, when we moved our family of four from our first home (also in Lakewood) to our president residence just south of Farquhar.

I have successfully built two small businesses on the core principals of integrity, excellence, innovation, and service. I now hope to put these same core values and my business experience to work for our community

After twenty years living in this fine little town, my increasing frustration with increasing traffic gridlock on our city streets and the lack of effective teamwork on our City Council led me to become a candidate in this election.