Candidate for
Member, Town Council; Town of Danville

I began earning money as a child after I had completed my chores by selling magazine subscriptions to neighboring farmers.

When my parents moved from upstate NY to Florida, I immediately got a job as a bellhop after high school, showing rooms and carrying in luggage. My pay was $5/week plus tips. I graduated from St. Petersburg Senior High School in June, 1960.

Although I had a full, all expenses scholarship to FSU's new Engineering Program, a savvy High School Guidance Councellor advised me to attend Ga. Tech under the Co-op Plan; an affordable solution at a university with an established engineering reputation. After 2 successful quarters at Tech, I began my Co-op Career with Esso (now ExxonMobil) at their Linden, NJ Refinery. . . On my own at age 18 at a professional job! I alternated work and college quarters, transferred to Esso's Baton Rouge Refinery, the most complex in the World at that time. At school I entered advanced ROTC, expecting to be commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Chemical Corps. Because of my professional training, and the need to develop men with CBR skills, I was granted a critical skills deferrment to complete an MS degree. Marriage to Betsy, and the birth of sons Carl and Eric brought further deferrments, so I never was called to Active Duty. I have remained knowledgeable of our Country's CBR capabilities to this day.

My career with Monsanto began as a desk job in Process Technology in Alvin, TX, south of Houston, which I tired of after a year, asking to be transferred into the plant as a Production Engineer. I enjoyed working at the interface between engineers, shift formen, and operators, and was able to gain the respect of all these groups. I soon found myself chairing every Accident Investigation Committee because of my even-handedness. The plant was non-union, and wanted to keep it that way by only allowing those engineers like myself to interface with operators, lest a grievance be filed. I was asked to be Manager of the Safety Department. While knowledgable and trusted in that area, that was not the way I was interested in my career path to head. In a large corporation, refusal of an assignment is not looked upon kindly by management. I had also worked at Monsanto's Texas City, TX Plant. Wage employees there were represented by OCAW, and Labor-Management Relations were not as good. This was also the time of the 1973-1974 Arab Oil Embargo; Monsanto was having a hard time getting feedstocks, but International Oil Companies were reaping "obscene profits", at least according to the media. I drove my wife and 2 sons from the Houston, TX area to the Pittsburgh, PA area where I began work for Gulf Oil.

I began work with Gulf at their Harmarville, PA Research Labs, doing economic evaluation of research projects. Some were pretty "blue sky", because in those days our Country was unsure of a secure supply of Crude Oil and Gulf had money to burn on these types of projects. I have to admit I went on some boondoggle trips, since these were a way of rewarding employees while lowering Corporate Income Taxes. Word got out to Management that I had had some Management Science experience, so 2 years later I was transferred to Corporate Headquarters in the Gulf Building in downtown Pittsburgh. I spent my free time in summers with my family, growing a vegetable garden, and managing my sons Little League Team. The summers were mosquito free, moderate humidity and ideal for growing a garden. We had the misfortune those 4 winters to experience the most brutal weather on record in Pittsburgh. Nevertheless, we all had fun sledding and playing in the snow, a novel experience for 2 boys born in Gulf Coast Texas. I was promoted and transferred to the Gulf Tower in downtown Houston, still in Management Science, back to the heat, humidity, mosquitoes, and no more vegetable garden, this time living in Kingwood, TX, the "Liveable Forest" at the edge of piney woods East Texas, in suburban Houston. In 1980, i won a company wide contest about political party platforms. The prize was an all-expense paid trip for Betsy and I to accompany corporate executives to the Reagan-Bush Inauguration Week in Washington, D.C. Houston was at that time the largest city in the world without zoning. My commute was 26 miles one way by company van pool. That's Sprawl! I continued participating with my sons in youth baseball and soccer. All sports fields there and back in Pittsburgh were free of user fees, maintained by HOA Assessments. It was in Kingwood that I almost immediately was recruited to serve on my HOA Board, and just as immediately elected President and delegate to Kingwood Services Association(KSA), an umbrella organization of all of the HOAs. KSA provided all of the services of a city, (of 50,000) financed from HOA Assessments. I was elected President of KSA for the 1984-1985 Term. Chevron bought Gulf Oil in 1984, after a bidding war with Boone Pickens that saw our employee common stock in Gulf quintuple. It was an example in which NOT being diversified, with large holdings of ones company stock, being very lucrative. I was transferred by Chevron to Chevron Park on August 1, 1985.

Chevron found after the buy-out, it had twice the number of employees it needed. I voluntarily left Chevron, having no further need for a paycheck, and have devoted my life to managing our investments, and community service ever since.