Occupational background: 

Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel (Attack Helicopter and Air Cavalry commander)

Retired Chief Financial Officer, UW Professional & Continuing Education

 

Educational background:

MS (with 4.0 GPA) Logistics Management

BS (with honors) Business Administration

 

There are 4 fundamental divisions in my life:  growing up, college, Army career, finally a hometown.

 

Growing up

 

In a strange contrast, I grew up in the hills of East Tennessee in a city that had the 2^nd highest percentage of PhDs per capita of any city in the world, Oak Ridge.  Built in 1942, Oak Ridge was part of the Manhattan Project, which built the atomic bomb.  Half of my neighborhood was made up of nuclear physicists and nuclear and chemical engineers.  My dad was an electrician and my mom was a school teacher.  The only difference that I knew was that my dad wore boots to work and the other fathers wore coats & ties.

 

It was part of my responsibilities to work when I could and at whatever I could.  I started mowing lawns at about 10-years old.  I took over my older brother’s paper route when I was 12.  I also sold personalized Christmas cards door to door in the neighborhood.  When I turned 16, I could get a real job, so I went to work as a bookkeeper for a contractor.  In my senior year in High School I went into the DECA program (Distributive Education Clubs of America) and was president of my club.  My practical experience was as a salesman at a local men’s clothing store in the afternoons.  (As an employee I was allowed to open my first credit account.  That led to a learning experience requiring two years to pay off the charge account after I had left the clothing store - a lesson I have never forgotten.)

 

College

 

At the University of Tennessee, I got work-study assistance and cobbled together a patchwork of loans, grants and scholarships that kept the rent paid, somehow.  In the summers I migrated north to work for the Jolly Green Giant canning peas and corn.  Able to work more than 80 hours per week, this paid a large part of my next year's schooling - and was good preparation for the Army.  Summer work didn't cover everything, though.  I held part-time jobs throughout my time at the university, but even that was not always enough.  Someone must have been looking out for me, because I would happen on to resources at times just as the wolf was at the door or the tuition was due.  It took me 5 years to get through a 4-year curriculum in Business because of the additional time needed to work, but I had fun and ended up graduating with “honors” and a private pilot's license I had earned outside my university studies. 

 

Army

 

I followed my older brother’s footsteps in college and took ROTC, even securing a scholarship for the last two years of college.  I entered the Army upon graduation and went to Fort Benning “School for Boys,” the US Army Infantry School for officer basic training, Airborne school, and Ranger school.  Not being totally out of touch with reality, I applied for flight school before my second year in the infantry was completed.  I was able to fly utility and attack helicopters for most of the remainder of my 21 years in the Army or serve as a staff officer in aviation organizations.

 

Finally a hometown

 

Upon retiring from the Army in the early 90's, I had a chance to choose where I wanted to live for the first time in my life.  My wife wanted to come to the Puget Sound region, and I wanted to stay married. So, we were Seattle bound.

 

After months of looking, Kirkland drew us in with the high quality of life and welcoming people we met.

 

I soon got a newly-created budget analyst’s position at the University of Washington in the Office of Planning and Budgeting.  It was newly created, because the University had just received authority to retain tuition revenue from students.  Prior to that, tuition had all been sent to state coffers without any interest of the university.  With the tuition portfolio, I came to develop skills at revenue forecast modeling and writing legislation to allow more flexibility for the University.  I drafted several bills that were subsequently enacted into law, and the revenue model I created was adapted for higher education analysis by legislative staff in Olympia.  I received several awards from student organizations because I took time to explain to student representatives how tuition policy and legislative processes worked. 

 

In my last six years at UW, I was the Finance Director and, later, Chief Financial Officer for UW’s self-sustaining educational enterprise (an operation of educational programs without state tax support).  That meant the programs must raise sufficient revenue to pay all the costs, both direct and indirect.  The organization grew from $25 million per year to $90 million during my tenure.  Finding that the organization was not profitable when I arrived, we turned things around within eighteen months as systems were established to monitor costs and revenue at the individual program level.  The organization's reputation continued to progress to the point that unsustainable programs operating in other parts of the university were transferred in, brought to profitability, and debts repaid faster than expected.   

 

I have served on the City Council, while working at UW, for the past eleven years.  Since my November retirement from UW, I find I now have more time to focus on issues at hand and have begun to dig deeper and investigate more broadly than before. 

 

I don’t limit myself to these endeavors, however.  Below are the affiliations I maintain or have previously been involved.

 

Organizational affiliations: 

State Board of Directors, Transportation Choices Coalition

Board of Directors and Secretary, Eastside TimeBank

Co-founder and convener, Kirkland Conversations
Member, Greater Kirkland Chamber of Commerce

Founding Member, Eastside Business Association

Life Member, Sierra Club

Life Member, Military Officers Association of America

Member, Washington Conservation Voters

Member, Washington Environmental Council

Member, Cascade Land Conservancy

Member, Futurewise

Member, KUOW

Former Member, Council on Finance and Administration, United Methodist

            Church, Pacific Northwest Conference; former chair, Audit Committee

Former President, Partnerships Foundation, supporting Lake Washington schools

Former Steering Committee Member, Kirkland Interfaith Transitions in Housing

            Community Supper

Former Member, Kirkland Interfaith Network

Former Secretary, Standing Ovation (an Eastside foundation supporting the arts)

 

Public experience:

Regional Law, Safety and Justice Committee (former chair & current member)

Kirkland City Council’s Public Safety Committee (founding chair & current member)

Kirkland City Council’s Legislative Committee (current member)

Kirkland City Council’s Ethics Committee (current member)

King County Emergency Medical Services Advisory Task Force - Kirkland representative (2011-13)

Former Chair, Performance Audit Committee examining Sound Transit

Former Trustee, Cascadia Community College Foundation

Former Executive Committee Member, Washington State Dept. of Transportation,

            SR 520 Bridge Replacement and HOV Project

Former Member, Metro Transit’s Eastside Sounding Board

Former Member, A Regional Coalition for Housing (ARCH) Citizen’s Advisory

            Board

Former Member Kirkland’s Ad Hoc Transportation Committee