I was brought up in a single-parent household in a small town called Dewitt, Michigan.
Both of my grandparents served in WWII. During my upbringing, my uncle was serving in Vietnam and my mother was an officer in our local fire department while also serving as a locally elected county official. Naturally I was raised with a strong sense of respect for our community and responsibility to participate and contribute.
As a sophomore in high school, I was a member of the Sea Cadets. In July of 1987, I joined the United States Navy and served this country for 20+ years.
My career took me around the world serving in multiple theaters from the first Gulf War to modern-day Afghanistan to counter-narcotics operations in South and Central America.
My wife, Maria, and I met in high school. We have 3 sons and 3 grandsons. 26 years ago the navy brought us to Whidbey Island and we fell in love with the area and have been here ever since. We have a small farm in Island County where we raise farm animals from cows to chickens. We enjoy gardening, boating, fishing, hiking, and exploring the great Pacific Northwest.
As your next Commissioner I will ensure that Island County policies reflect our desire to keep our county rural, by creating smaller government and supporting the privacy we hold dear!
I will work with our other Island County officials to:
.....support local small businesses and encourage local employment, encourage local economy including local farming and local trades, reduce wasteful spending on projects that are not relevant to our rural way of living, create realistic budgets for supporting our needed services in Island County, address ways to bring down high costs of living, repeal tax hikes that were not voted on by our taxpayers, make the proper maintenance and engineering of our roadways and waterways a priority, support our Sheriff in enforcing our laws that protect us, help address mental health and substance abuse issues among our homeless population, set policies to discourage attracting additional transient vagrancy, address the need for better local medical care.
