After growing up in New York City, I followed the path of my father and decided to enter the US Marine Corps. Fortunately, I was able to attend the Naval Academy where I majored in electrical engineering and received a commission as a second lieutenant.  I later entered flight training and became a Naval Aviator, flying the CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter.  At the time it was the largest helicopter in the free world.  Grateful for this opportunity, as a young man I was able to participate in experiences that most people don't experience in their entire life. Having a top-secret clearance opened my eyes to the “real world” and gives perspective to what we see regarding the news of the day.

I entered the civilian world at the ripe old age of 28, where I started my career in the chemical industry. My specialty was oil and energy. I worked nationally with a variety of oil refiners and helped them meet the requirements of the Clean Air Act.  One very satisfying project I participated in was providing products to the City of New York that helped their new low emission buses run on Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel fuel and eliminate the black soot and harmful emissions that were common on city streets up until that time.  Pedestrians like myself and others didn't get covered with black soot anymore when waiting to cross the street as the emissions were dramatically reduced.

In the midst of my career, I attended Rutgers Law School in the evenings and graduated at 46.  Working in a firm didn’t interest me, so I started to look for an interesting opportunity to use my new degree.  In 2017, I decided to join four other individuals and founded a California cannabis company. My job was to be senior vice president of legal and compliance where I worked to obtain one of the first licenses in California to distribute across the state. This was very interesting work as it was a very new industry.  In distribution, I worked in every phase of the business.  I met everyone from growers, manufacturers and retail shops.  My chemistry background helped quite a bit with the labs and safety testing.  I also interfaced with government regulators and had to deal with very large amounts of cash. In just over a year, we took the company public, had over 100 employees and were in three states.  It isn’t an easy business to get started and as a result, I’ve become very familiar with this industry’s ins and outs.  I am wondering why the issue has been silent this year in town.  Could it be that its an election year?

Tired of running back and forth to California, I went back to work for a small boutique chemical company out of Chicago where I now perform the same work as earlier in my career.

Probably the most satisfying and yet disappointing choice was to become a Councilman for the last six years. I was able to get a lot of good things done for residents but unfortunately, I also saw people who put their politics first and residents second; always trying to derail progress if it didn't meet their national political party goals.  That’s one reason why I started this blog, so you can see the real motivations of the people behind local government and what really goes on and not the “made for the public” image they portray.  Hope you enjoy it.