Biography

I grew up in the suburbs of Washington, DC, was educated at the public schools in Maryland, and came to Minnesota in 1975 to attend Carleton College. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in Psychology, I realized that I preferred the pace of the Twin Cities to that of the D.C. area, eventually settling in St. Paul in 1984 and purchasing a home here in 1985. Right after college, I briefly worked for the Hennepin County Department of Economic Assistance, then earned a law degree from the William Mitchell College of Law. At the same time that I was attending law school, I owned and operated the Sports Collection retail store at Grand and Hamline Avenues, a popular sports fan store that brought me into contact with thousands of local families and neighborhood organizations, churches, synagogues, schools, public officials, and everyday citizens. That experience awakened in me an interest in my "adopted" community, and in the late 1980s I served on the Macalester-Groveland Community Council and the original Ayd Mill Task Force. In 1989, I co-founded with St. Paul Parks and Recreation the annual St. Paul Gus Macker 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament, an event which I served as volunteer coordinator and tournament director until 1993.

In 1998, after closing my retail business, I revived the literary baseball journal Elysian Fields Quarterly, which I served as both publisher and editor until last year. That endeavor brought me into direct contact with the issue of public funding of sports stadia throughout America, and I'm proud of my role as one of the opposition leaders who helped defeat former mayor Norm Coleman's attempt to raise the local sales tax to finance a new Twins stadium in downtown St. Paul. One thing I learned repeatedly from that experience is that citizen involvement is crucial if we want to have any kind of control over our local community, especially when it concerns the means by which we attempt to achieve certain goals.

As a result of that political baptism, I embraced my role as a citizen activist and became involved in other local issues such as the conceal and carry debate, the INS separation ordinance, and the St. Paul public schools. In 2001, I was elected treasurer of the JJ Hill Montessori School Support Council, and the next year became chair of that organization, helping to mobilize parents disappointed with the manner in which the School Board proposed to administer budget cuts for the 2003 school year. In 2003-04, I served on the site council at JJ Hill, and also became active with Parents United Network, a non-partisan statewide organization bringing together parents and other Minnesotans to support quality E-12 public education. During that time, I also worked as an organizer on affordable housing issues, and since being elected to the School Board in 2005, have been a staff attorney for the Minnesota Justice Foundation, administrator for the Health, Housing and Family Security Committee of the Minnesota Senate, and most recently, a business representative and union organizer for SEIU Healthcare Minnesota.

Although I lived in the Macalester-Groveland community of St. Paul for twenty years, since 2004 I have resided in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood, about half a mile from Central High School where my son, Mathew, is now beginning his junior year.