I moved to Goose Creek in 1980, to Crowfield Plantation when it was just beginning to be developed. I worked for Westvaco as a programmer analyst, my wife was a school teacher, and at the time I had one young child. During my career at Westvaco and MeadWestvaco, I had many positions. I moved to Westvaco Development Corporation, or WDC, as many called it, as their Administration manager. WDC built Crowfield Plantation, Oakbrook of Summerville, and other communities. I gained a lot of knowledge about how communities grow and develop through that experience. I moved from WDC to the Forestry Division and on to the Chemical Division as the Business Analysis Manager and later as a Sales and Production Analyst. I left MeadWestvaco after 28 years in 2007. It was a tremendous experience with a great company. Since that time I earned a Real Estate license and helped people buy and sell homes. In 2010, Coldwell Banker asked me to be their Broker in Charge and a new phase of my life began managing 40+ agents. In 2017, about mid-year, I stepped down from being the broker and moved back into selling real estate. My wife Marti had retired after 38 years of being in the education world and I did not want to be tied to a desk so we could do more together.

          During all that time, my wife and I raised three incredible children and spent many hours giving back to our community for all the blessings we have been given. I have been the Vice President of the Summerville YMCA, a commissioner on the Goose Creek Parks and Playgrounds Commission, and later Chairman of that commission. I was a member of the Goose Creek Rotary Club for years and president of that group for a year, where we raised $25,000 for the Rotary Foundation. I was on the Berkeley County Career and Technology committee as a member and served as the chairman. I also served on the Charleston Chamber of Commerce Education Foundation Board of Directors and as a founding member of Berkeley County Education Foundation Board of Directors. I have spent much of my life trying to help make our community a better place to live, work, and play. I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished, and I am motivated to see how our community propels into the future.

          I have a wonderful family, with 3 children and 5 grandchildren. All of my children attended Goose Creek schools. Our youngest daughter, Morgan, graduated from University of South Carolina Honors College. She is currently working with homeless families through Aloha United Way in Honolulu, Hawaii. My son graduated from NASCAR Tech in Charlotte and is now the Service Director for McDaniels Acura and Audi in Charleston. My oldest is a stay-at-home Navy wife with three kids living in Charleston. We have lived in the same house for over thirty-seven years. I love where I live and I love Goose Creek. I have been fortunate to serve at your pleasure on city council for 20 of those years. It has been a true honor that I hope to continue.

          I believe our accomplishments speak for themselves. We are a thriving community in the middle of a huge expansion in our region. We just recently went from being debt-free to borrowing money to build a new fire department headquarters and a new fire substation near Walmart. We have expanded the recreation facilities by building phase two of the REC center and we have completed our second water pillar, tying all three of our major water sources together so city water pressure should be constant throughout the city.

          I do have a vision for the future of Goose Creek. For years we have tried to be the bedroom community of Charleston and we have been very successful. We have been told, “We are the best place in South Carolina to raise a family”. My mission, our mission (city council), has been to provide the basic services at the best value and service possible. We concentrate on fire, police, sanitation and water quality, and recreation as the four keys to a successful community. Most everything else is accessible from the free market if you so choose. However, we do occasionally stray from that mission; but only for good causes which I believe enhances the community as a whole – such as the Crowfield Golf course, the streetscaping done in the area we call “the triangle”, the beautification of Highway 52 along the railroad tracks, etc.. We made those decisions to preserve the property values and quality of life opportunities in Goose Creek. The Golf course creates higher property values and those higher property values help everyone in the city.

          During my tenure on the Council, I wanted to see the Goose Creek Parks and Playgrounds and the City merge and build more and better facilities to serve our citizens and families. This has been my major goal while working on city council. I was able to accomplish that and those facilities have steadily improved. I hoped for more, but when the last recession hit we had to focus on the essentials. We worked really hard to keep status quo and keep costs down and taxes low during those past years. I know many of you have had difficulty making ends meet. I have been there too, so I understand that issue. It was hard to raise your children in the fashion they have been accustomed to when the economy was in such bad shape. So we, the Council, held back doing things that could have been done. Now that the economy has picked up we need to be diligent in our efforts to watch our pennies. I will work hard for you and the families like mine to see our taxes do not increase any more than necessary. There are things that were out of our control over the past two years that have required us to raise taxes for the first time in decades. Health care costs, a poorly handled retirement system, and state mandates that we are required to fund, to name a few. I will look for opportunities to make our city stronger both economically and for our family-friendly lifestyle, but that will require input from all of YOU. If you have ideas and/or suggestions, please attend the Council meetings or send them to me, and I will try to voice them for you. It is my hope and commitment to you for us to continue being recognized as the “best place to raise a family” and to keep our quality of life and basic services the best they can be.

         Together, let’s work to preserve our hometown while planning for a vibrant future!  Thank you for the support you’ve shown and I hope you will vote for me on July 31st.