I’m passionate about working to address education inequality from within and outside the classroom walls.  

My story 

I identify as an Irish-German American, raised culturally as a hillbilly on the east side of Cleveland (Ohio) in a predominately Black, Jewish, and immigrant (eastern Europe and Russia) neighborhood. 

My K-8 education was wonderfully diverse, yet woefully underfunded. At the time, I didn’t know it by our classrooms were overly populated, resources limited, and expectations were low.

When my father lost his wedding job and moved us out of the city, we had a life-changing opportunity to move into affordable housing in one of the highest-funded public school systems in the state.

My classes went from sewing boxers (8th grade) to webpage design (9th grade). I began to understand how separate and unequal my education had been.

In perfect irony, my graduation from high school in 2012 corresponded with the Ohio Supreme Court ruling the public school funding system as unconstitutional. 

At Bowling Green State University, I was a first-generation college graduate. I’m incredibly proud and thankful for this accomplishment, but it basically means that a decade out of school, I still have student loan payments.  

My passion for addressing and examining inequality in myself and in systems of power has guided my professional choices to be a history teacher, university professor, and urban planner, and to found a community organizing and policy analysis organization (Richmond Forward). 

Informed by faith in Jesus, my servant-leader posture has drawn me to my community's biggest challenges.

In Richmond, those challenges were failing schools, affordable housing, and homelessness.

My professional and technical training lead me to take on big infrastructure projects (e.g. $800M, 20-year school system rebuild), overhaul an entire zoning code and comprehensive plan for inclusive housing practices, to help a homeless service non-profit write its first-ever organization plan.

If you really wanted to know more, I’m a dad, husband, son, big brother, friend, and lover of bakeries, Cleveland sports, and jokes. 

Why blog? 

Writing helps me examine, explore, and learn about and from my community.

From 2015 to 2017, I grew a personal blog about failing school facilities into Richmond Forward. This blog grew into a network of 600 subscribers a policy action team that was best known for our ability to synthesize, clearly communicate, and highlight the voices of those most impacted. 

Why Wilsonville? 

In July 2018, I moved more than 3,000 miles from Richmond to Wilsonville with my wife and daughter to pursue a life in the community with friends. In searching the Portland region for a place that met our needs (access to parks, entertainment, and racial and economic diversity), we chose Wilsonville and landed in the Villebois neighborhood.