Candidate for
Member, Democratic Party County Central Committee; County of Ventura; Supervisorial District 5

I come from a military family that lived in Texas, Michigan, Australia, Japan, Washington State, then Texas again. I went to the University of Texas, where I studied English, but quit school in March 1969 to join the U.S. Navy. I was trained both as a Hospital Corpsman and as a boat driver, but when I arrived in DaNang, Vietnam, I was assigned to work as a court reporter for the Judge Advocate General, and then later, as part of a Navy Civic Action Team, was given an opportunity to teach Engish at a Catholic girls' school in downtown DaNang. After Vietnam I was transferred to the USS ORISKANY, an aircraft carrier, where I served for the rest of my four-year enlistment. While the Oriskany plied the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin I edited the ship newspaper and worked in the ship's radio station as a deejay playing mainly Texas blues and rock.

After my discharge from the Navy in early 1973, I worked for the post office in Oakland at night while studying auto mechanics in the daytime. I also met Janis McCormick in 1975, we married in 1976, and have been happily married ever since. I worked on both automobiles and motorcycles in the East Bay until I moved to Southern California to work as the Technical Editor at Rider motorcycle magazine in early 1983. Three years later I went to work as an automotive technical author for Haynes Publishing in Newbury Park, and stayed there over 26 years. While at Haynes I earned certifications from the National Institute of Automotive Excellence (ASE) as a Certified Master Automotive Technician (CMAT) and as an Automotive Emissions Specialist (L1). It was my work on automotive emissions systems that first led me to become interested in Ventura County's air quality. I eventually worked in various capacities on air quality issues, such as the 1990 and 1994 Air Quality Management Plan Task Forces. Later, I was invited to apply for the Air Pollution Control District's Variance Hearing Board, on which I still serve. I'm also the Chair of the APCD Clean Air Fund, which helps to fund innovative technologies that clean up our air in quantifiable ways. I was also a part-time evening instructor at Oxnard College's Automotive Department for about eight years, where I taught automotive emissions systems, engine electronics, fuel injection systems and other topics.

In my forties I decided to return to school and finish my academic studies at CSU Northridge. I drove down to Northridge after work for eight years and eventually earned a double major in modern English literature and (mainly modern) History. I graduated from college, finally, at 50!

I have devoted most of my spare time over the last 15 years to working with fellow Sierra Club members along with the members of many community-based organizations in Oxnard, to save, protect and restore Ormond Beach. If we're successful, it will be Oxnard's first step in a new direction, one that views the natural world as an asset in its own right, not simply something to pave over and cover up with light industrial parks.

My wife and I are currently trainees in the UC Master Gardener program based at the Hansen Trust (the old Faulkner Farm) near Santa Paula. The more I learn about the rich agricultural heritage of Ventura County the prouder I am to call Ventura County, and Oxnard, my home. (Full disclosure: I actually live in El Rio, so though I am a member of the "Greater Oxnard" community, I am not actually a resident of Oxnard itself. For you history buffs: Cohen's Corner, once the only stagecoach stop over between the Conejo Valley and Santa Barbara, was actually located in what is now known as El Rio, and predated the Oxnard brothers' beet plant!)

My hobbies include reading; music; gardening; biking; hiking; "peak bagging" (hiking to the summit of a peak and back down again, in one day); working on my house; and tinkering with old motorcycles and VWs.