I spent most of my childhood growing up in New Hampshire. My Dad was a middle and high school English teacher who was always searching for that perfect job where kids actually wanted to learn. Needless to say, we moved around a lot! By the time I got to high school we had settled in Milford, NH, and I graduated from the local public high school in 1983. Although I believe I was naturally bright, I didn’t apply myself to the academics. It all seemed boring and just an endless stream of memorization tasks. I really had no clue on what I wanted to do vocationally, or otherwise, with my life.
My Higher Education Years
It’s only when I got to college that I actually learned how to be a critical thinker. My professors actually cared a lot less about memorizing facts and a lot more about what I thought about the material I was studying. I attended Gordon College, a small Christian liberal arts college just north of Boston. I majored in History and had dual minors in Biblical Studies and Philosophy. I graduated and received my Bachelor of Arts degree from there in 1987. I still didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do vocationally, but I still feel to this day that my time there made me a more well-rounded and better human being that wanted to serve God and others.
For a time, I explored pursuing a doctoral degree in history and becoming a professor myself. But after a couple of years of that, I decided that I was more interested in a career working with ordinary people, rather than a life in the cloistered ivy. I decided to become a high school History and Social Studies teacher and started pursing my Master of Education degree in 1989. I didn’t come from a wealthy family and so for the next 3 years I worked full-time during the day in landscaping and other jobs, and attended Rivier University, in Nashua, NH, at night. I took all the needed classes for teacher certification, but I was most interested in studying Piaget’s theories of learning. I enjoyed my studies and graduated in 1992.
A Couple of Twists & Turns
Although I had graduated, I couldn’t find a high school history or social studies teaching position immediately upon graduation. To make ends meet I took a Teaching Assistant position at the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, MA. This famous school, once visited by Charles Dickens and attended by Helen Keller, was once a sort of prep school for the blind and/or deaf. However, by the time I arrived a lot of these types of students had been mainstreamed into “normal” schools. For the next three years I worked with students who had multiple learning, emotional, and physical disabilities. This was challenging but fulfilling work. I even contemplated going back to school for another year so that I could take the classes necessary for Special Education certification. However, in the end I became disillusioned. I enjoyed working with the students and developing Individual Education Plan (IEP) goals for them with my peers and their families. However, I soon realized that the school administration was far more interested in maintaining bureaucratic control and avoiding possible civil litigation then they were about student success. After an IEP meeting for a student that I believed was having his rights violated was held in secret and without me, I decided to resign my position.
Out of work, and needing money, I took a temporary job stuffing envelopes at a marketing services company that my mother was working for. As fate would happen, someone noticed I still possessed the computer programming skills that I had picked up in high school. A full-time job was offered, and thus my career in IT began.
Since Then
After working for the marketing services company and a couple of other web development companies for a while, I moved to Ohio and got married in 2007. It was very fulfilling to help raise my two stepdaughters Kate and Lakyn, whom I treat as my own and love very much. While residing in the Columbus area my IT career really took off, working for companies such as Nationwide Insurance and Thirty-One Gifts. What I soon realized was that the good Software Engineers were actually creative and not just “code monkeys.” When you design a software system you have many choices in design and in the technologies used. Thinking outside of the box usually harvests better results for the end users and the business.
After the youngest stepdaughter graduated high school in 2012, we decided to “get out of the cold” and move to the Wilmington area. I have enjoyed it immensely and have no plans of ever leaving! After my remote position for Thirty-One Gifts expired in 2014, I have been working as a Software Engineer at the Corning Optical Fiber plant here in Wilmington.
A Rebirth of Service
While family life has been fulfilling, I always felt that I lost something by not engaging in as much public service as I would have liked to. Then in 2016 my grandson Lucas was born right here in Wilmington. I looked around and saw the deterioration of our personal liberties and suddenly realized that I needed to do something to reverse this trend, and ensure that he had a community, state, and country worth growing up in. I started getting involved in local politics.
After a brief stint as a member of the Libertarian Party, and a couple of valiant but failed attempts at becoming elected to the NC General Assembly, I returned to the Republican Party in 2019, and became active in the Republican Liberty Caucus. I helped to form a local chapter. We were active in campaigning for liberty and our constitutional rights during COVID-19 and endorsed and aided Melissa Mason to her victory in the 2022 New Hanover County Board of Education race.
My grandson is now 7 years old and attends 2nd grade at Codington Elementary School. I have decided that it would now be best to focus my political service towards improving the school district Lucas is attending. I want to make sure his future is bright! I want to make sure the future of all New Hanover County students is very, very bright!!
