Friends, I have taken this unusual format to tell my story because I think it tells you more about me as a person and the character I bring to the Office of Mason District Supervisor. I grew up in Saint Louis, Missouri and came to the DMV to attend college. After college and the Army, I have lived in Northern Virginia and the Falls Church Area for 50 years.
Growing Up in a Tough Environment
I was the oldest of eight children. We lived in a working-class neighborhood and after my Dad left to find a job in another state, but did not return, we lived in public housing and were on welfare for a couple of years before my Mom became a Head Start teacher for the next twenty years. Those early years taught me the importance of a safe, positive, and stable neighborhood environment, which we did not have some of that time. They also taught me the importance of a father in the home. The absence of a father dims the chances of success of boys in particular. I was fortunate to attend an all-boys Catholic higher-level academic background. I self-financed my education from that point on, working at an ice cream stand and selling newspapers. The latter ended when I got hit by a car. My high school facilitated the biggest jump in learning in my life. Public or private education should help a student to achieve their highest academic achievement. But high school was the most difficult time in my life, bar none. Inculcated in my early youth, my religious faith was the key to surmounting the problems. The Adverse Child Experiences that most students face today may often be different than mine, but help from parents, mentors or professionals can save futures.
College and the Army Set My Trajectory
My hard work in high school led to a scholarship for the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. This was a new and wonderful world that exposed me to the labyrinth of cultures that I find exciting. My most well-known feat there was beating one Bill Clinton for the Student Council Presidency. Bill got a Rhodes scholarship and I barely made it through, which all goes to prove that in America, you can have anything, you just can’t have everything. One of the many jobs I had at Georgetown was a patronage job from my Congresswoman, and I volunteered for her, too. This was my first official connection to politics, increasing even more, if that is possible, my desire to be a part of it in public service.
After Georgetown I served for a little more than four years as a U.S. Army Officer. Nineteen months of that service was in Vietnam. I served as a Psychological Operations Officer and as a Platoon Leader and Company Commander. Being responsible for the lives of my men was the greatest responsibility of my
life. No other scenario taught me more about the importance of discipline – trying to be easy on someone often hurts the others and the group as a whole. Even though I was in a paratrooper unit, we had our drug problems like everyone else in the early ‘70s. I believe that drugs have hurt our society – our families, public order, the economy – more than any other single force.
Public Policy and Programs Characterize My Working Life
From 1973 to 1980 I worked on Capitol Hill, and as the Staff Director of the Panama Canal Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives for five years. I dealt with the ins and outs of legislation. The Canal treaties issue was the most controversial of that decade, so the wider world of politics was on full display. It was also a very complex issue that taught me more about diplomacy, international trade, and domestic legislation. My most important role involved coordinating the work with three other Committees that implemented the treaties. I learned that despite the greatest of passions, elected officials can come together to meet our country’s obligations, even if they didn’t like the premise. During these years I also earned a Masters Degree in Public Administration from American University, focusing on Urban Politics and Urban Finance.
My longest period of service was one of 28 years, serving most of those years as the Director of Youth programs for the National Crime Prevention Council (14 years) and then as Executive Director of Youth Crime Watch of America (10 years). The purpose of our programs, which reached 40 states at their apex, was to empower youth to seek crime-free and drug-free schools and communities. I had the opportunity to travel, speak, and train in more than half the states and worked with police departments and school systems and of course youth themselves across the country. I learned how the idealism and energy and practical nature of youth can be a powerful force for good if adults and institutions pay attention to youth, nurture them, and give them resources and the opportunity to achieve. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This work meant 60–70-hour weeks and sleeping on the office floor from time to time. As I found in the military, in the non-profit world where resources are sometimes limited, you do what you must do to accomplish the mission.
In 1984 I joined the association of the unit with which I served in Vietnam, the 173d Airborne Brigade. From 2000 to 2012 I was involved extensively as Chapter President in the affairs of the association regionally and nationally. In those years we participated in the burial, at Arlington National Cemetery
and elsewhere, of our troops Killed in Action in Iraq and Afghanistan. I lost three soldiers in Vietnam but thirty or more years later, I witnessed the family grief and loss forever of their beloved sons. We cannot forget that of our troops, “all give some and some give all.” I was proud to be a key part of the effort to memorialize their sacrifice in the 173d Airborne Brigade Memorial at Fort Benning, Georgia. That project ultimately raised $800,000. No one thought that could be done, but we did, and it proved again what persistence and never quitting on our goals can produce.
Family, Travel, and My Community Work
During the 1970s I was married, and we started a family. Like many, I later experienced the traumatic experience of divorce, but my kids have turned out well, doing great things I would not have predicted during tough times. I thank God. They are great parents to my five grandchildren. The older generations usually underestimate what the next generations can do. While engaged in my paid work, from 1987 through 2020 I coached youth basketball in the City of Falls Church Recreation program . The experience just reinforced my conviction of how important it is for our youth to be involved in teams and learn there is a greater goal than oneself. People, especially young people, need a sense of community. I also tested myself doing the Marine Corps Marathon 32 times, though I trained properly for just a few of them. From 2011 through the present, I discontinued my 24/7 jobs that I held for 40 years and worked at Nationals Park, in security, at Target, and in consulting, getting paid by the hour for the first time since college. I volunteered through the Knights of Columbus for the culture of life and the parish food pantry. I served on my (very large – 835 units) condominium board , an experience that taught me once again the importance of patience with tenacity and relationships with my peers. I ran for state office four times because I have always wanted to shape a better future for my brothers and sisters. In 2010 and 2020 I was a Census Enumerator. My work in the 2020 Census was in Seven Corners and Culmore and Rosslyn. That was two Americas. The Culmore Area reminded me of growing up in many of the same circumstances in the ‘50s.
International Has Always Been Personal to Me
In March, 2022 I began work coordinating English classes and helping to find employment opportunities for Afghan immigrants, the great majority of whom fled Afghanistan when the Taliban returned to power in August, 2021. It has reinforced my perspective that people coming here see the United States as that City on a Hill where their dreams can be fulfilled. It has been a sort of bookend to the international experience that began with college when I was part of a student-to-student program in the Sahel of North Africa. Because I have traveled to every continent, I know what people expect of the United States. I want our country and our own locality and communities to be as good as immigrants expect them to be, with opportunity, freedom, and the rule of law. It has also been a reminder that others – across the U.S. and overseas have ideas from which we can learn. These are all parts of my life that I call the Streets and the Suites. I have been blessed with good health to be able to do these things. I have been blessed to work with awesome people at every level of life, people born from across the world, of all races and religions, at all economic levels. With my life experience I can do more for you because a local elective leadership position like the Mason District Supervisor is where policy, program, and people meet.