About Me
Financial Experience
I have 20 plus years of career experience in corporate finance and governance, working for wealth management firms including Charles Schwab and Morgan Stanley. I’ve managed budgets of a half-billion dollars, and I’ve handled financial reporting for more than one trillion dollars of investment assets. I know what transparency and good governance look like, because I had to provide that to some of the most demanding customers in the world: private sector investors! I’ve managed teams, I’ve developed staff, and I’ve worked with peers to establish policies and procedures that set clear expectations for all of us and drive accountability. Douglas County deserves transparency, and Douglas County voters deserve a County Treasurer who has the professional experience to deliver that!
Volunteer Experience
I’ve spent the last eight years advising the Douglas County School District’s Board of Education while serving on two different committees. I’m currently serving as the Co-Chair of the Fiscal Oversight Committee (FOC), where I’ve worked diligently to warn about financial risks to the District and to raise concerns about transparency for the District’s $1 billion budget. We’ve provided citizen oversight for the investment of over $300 million in bond reserves and general fund balances. Serving on the Mill Bond Oversight Committee, I’ve helped to oversee more than $750 million of capital spending on building upgrades, security improvements, and new construction.
Beyond that, I’ve spent the last 10 years of my life as a soccer coach, a soccer parent, and a soccer referee. While referees are never the most popular person on the field, the job experience is surprisingly relevant to being a County Treasurer. It’s their job to know the rules, to enforce the rules, and to help explain the rules to parents and players when questions and conflicts arise. And to preserve their credibility, they’re expected to remain impartial the whole time!
I also have prior Board experience in the non-profit sector, and I’ve offered strategic and regulatory consulting services to the founders of multiple start-ups.
Personal Life
I was born and raised in Oklahoma and have lived in Douglas County for 18 years. My wife, Paula, and I are proudly raising our two teenagers and happily living with our two dogs. Prior to my life in finance, my early career explorations included working as a teacher, working for the FBI, and working with Filipino street children in Manila, where I helped to establish the first hospital-based center for treating child sexual abuse in Southeast Asia. I played NCAA soccer in college and remain active in the community as a referee and a coach. My time spent in our community only helps me to learn more about what is important to the residents of Douglas County, and I will represent those things with professionalism and integrity.
I’m deeply saddened by the toxic partisanship that is on the rise across America, and I firmly believe that respect for each other is a cornerstone of American democracy. Personal quotes I identify with that relate to politics:
“None of us is as smart as all of us.” –Ken Blanchard (from The One Minute Manager)
“The right of freely examining public persons and measures … [is] the only effectual guardian of every other right.” –James Madison (from The Virginia Report 1799-1800)
“But if you want money for people with minds that hate, all I can tell you is brother, you’ll have to wait.” –The Beatles (from “Revolution”, 1968)
Why I'm Right for the Job
Leadership is about more than being elected or appointed to fill a leader’s position. It’s about having the courage to be part of a leadership team and while having the humility to cooperate.
There are 9 officials elected by a majority vote of all the voters in Douglas County (see below for visual org chart). They are intended to serve as peers, as equals. For a leadership team to work together, they each need to stay in their own swim lanes. But they also have some more broad responsibilities:
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County leadership needs to collaborate to establish county-wide policies, and then they need to hold each other accountable to follow these policies.
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The policies aren’t there to tie officials’ hands; they’re there to make it clear exactly what the voters’ expectations are.
I have two decades’ experience working in large organizations to build sensible policies and then to design governance procedures to help us all follow those policies. That’s not bureaucracy, that’s leadership.
People Management is one of the most important qualities in any elected official. The County Treasurer oversees a team, and they are the absolute backbone of everything that the County Treasurer’s office does. The ability to manage people is important for any elected leader. I have 10+ years experience professionally managing employees: making sure the work gets done, growing them, and stepping in to offer advice and support when it’s needed. Some of the proudest moments of my career were when employees told me that I was among the best managers they’d ever had. And that’s happened to me more than once or twice. Elect a candidate with a proven track record in doing what a County Treasurer needs to do.
Let’s Work Together
Get in touch so we can start working together.