Candidate for
Council Member; City of Pasadena; District 1

I was born April 10, 1953. I grew up on south Oak Knoll in Pasadena, adjacent to the PUSD district offices. I attended McKinley Elementary, McKinley Jr. High, and Blair High School, graduating in 1971. I played sports--poorly--in Jr. High and High School. Later, I attended Pasadena City College, where I learned a new sport-foil fencing. In the following years, I became West Coast Collegiate Foil Champion, Pacific Coast Champion (amateur), and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)Foil Championship finalist, earning the honor of NCAA All American. I later trained in Paris, France, and maintained a national ranking in the top 24 for several years.

I have worked in a variety of fields; in high school I was employed by McDonalds. I worked my way through college as a grocery bagger, then grocery clerk, where I learned what it meant to be a member of a collective bargaining unit, a union. I also worked as a grocery warehouseman for Ralphs Grocery Store. During my last year of college, I became a proofreader for an accounting/consulting firm that specialized in hotel developments. When I graduated from UC Irvine in 1987, I took a position in the same firm as a market analyst. Around 1990, I moved to an environmental consulting firm. I currently work for an environmental consulting firm that provides environmental compliance consulting services to public and private clients nationwide.

Between 1988 and 2000, I also worked as a substitute and full-time teacher for the Pasadena Unified School District. I began by teaching Special Ed at Elliott Middle School. I last taught full-time at Washington School as a fourth and fifth grade teacher from 1998 to 2000. Although I returned to the environmental consulting profession in September 2000, I am committed to helping reform PUSD schools.

My main community involvement, other than teaching, which I see as a wonderful community service, has been through an organization called Outward Bound Adventures. OBA's goal was and is to offer inner-city youth exposure to California's outdoor recreational and employment opportunities through teambuilding backpacking excursions in the Sierra Mountains starting at the 10,000-foot level. OBA gave me a "Can do" attitude, and a sense of responsibility to my community that I want pass on to young people as a member of city council.