When I was about two years old, my family kissed my grandparents goodbye at a train station in Budapest and told everyone we were off on vacation to Yugoslavia. We weren't. We were escaping communist Hungary with a few suitcases and false papers. We made it to Italy, lived there for six months, and then came to America.
I don't remember the journey itself, but I remember what came after: being the immigrant kid in Brooklyn who didn't speak the language, whose family didn't have much money, whose parents were nothing like the other kids' parents. From that moment on, I saw the world through an underdog's eyes. People who meet me today don't usually see an underdog — I've been lucky enough to live the American dream, with help from more people than I could ever name. But that lens never left me.
It deepened as I grew up. By adolescence I'd realized I was gay — underdog status, all over again. It took a few years to come to terms with it, but by nineteen I was out to my family and friends, and more determined than ever to look out for people the world overlooks. Growing up in Brooklyn's public schools, surrounded by every kind of family, taught me the other half of that lesson: that being around people different from you — learning from them, becoming friends with them — isn't a challenge to manage. It's the whole point.
My first job out of college was teaching middle school at an under-resourced school in Houston, Texas. I was barely 21 — some of my students weren't even ten years younger than I was. That classroom gave me a lifelong appreciation for teachers, for what they pour into our kids, and for how badly education needs to be funded and its people taken care of. It also gave me relationships that never ended: a few years ago, I took my son on a road trip back to Texas and had a reunion with my former students — now adults in their forties, wonderful people. It was one of the most heartwarming days of my life.
Teaching led to a job with a teaching nonprofit, and that job brought me to the Bay Area. I worked at San Francisco advertising agencies, then spent nearly a decade at Visa, where I was a vice president of advertising, and eventually started my own small business helping companies with their marketing — which I've run for almost twenty years. Meeting payroll and balancing a budget aren't abstractions to me. They're daily life.
The best thing I've ever done, though, is become a dad. I adopted my son Sammy at birth and raised him as a single father. Many of you know him — he's the kid who wore a bowtie on the first and last day of school, every year (yes, that's him!). When it was time for kindergarten, we chose Albany for its schools, and Albany Unified took him all the way through, K–12, with incredible teachers and staff at every step. He's now a rising sophomore at UC Davis, and he's the proof of what this town and its schools can do.
Albany didn't just educate my son. It gave us both a home — Dinner with Albany, Music in the Park, every school event from kindergarten through senior year. And I've spent many years trying to give back: serving on the middle school site committee; founding Albany's Pride, the LGBTQ+ parent engagement group in our schools; serving nearly ten years on the board of the Albany Education Foundation, where I created the Hall of Fame fundraiser; serving on the board of the Albany YMCA, a place that serves everyone from kids in its Youth & Government program — Sammy among them — to seniors in its classes. Today I'm president of the Albany Community Foundation, carrying forward 25 years of work by a lot of great people — and I'm proud that we've raised more money and given out more grants than ever before.
So why am I running for City Council? Because I love this town — its charm, its people, all of it. Albany took in an immigrant single dad and his kid and made us belong. That's not something you repay with words.
And because this is a special time. Golden Gate Fields is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and Albany has to be made whole as the land changes hands. Affordability is squeezing families here like everywhere. Budgets are tight, and the choices ahead are real — and after two decades of running a business, balanced budgets aren't a slogan for me; they're the only option I've ever had. You can read where I stand on all of it in the issues pages on this site.
What I promise is the way I've always worked, at the Community Foundation, the Education Foundation, and everywhere else: practical, listening first, transparent, and communicating all the way through. This town is full of great people — families who've been here for generations and neighbors who arrived last year. My job, as I see it, is to keep Albany the kind of place that takes people in. I know what that feels like. I've been that person.
