Candidate for
Trustee; Sacramento City Unified School District; Trustee Area 6

I am a native Californian, moving from the central California coast to South Sacramento in 1961. I attended John Sloat and Freeport Elementary schools and then attended Goethe Junior High (now Rosa Parks Middle School.) I graduated from Kennedy High School with the Class of 1969. I immediately went to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. I majored in history and graduated in the top 10% of my class in 1973. Initially I requested assignment on a frigate where I earned my Surface Warfare Officer Designation. I then requested flight training and earned my pilot "wings of gold" in 1977. While on active duty I held many leadership positions and command before my retirement in 1995.

After the Navy I initially worked in retail management, but soon realized that making money was never a true goal of mine. So, I transitioned to the education field. I held management and senior administration positions at a prestigious four-year college (RPI in Troy, New York) and as head of a two-year junior college in New York. While employed in this capacity I earned my Masters of Arts in Film from Empire State College (State University of New York.) In 2002 we returned to the Pocket area and I began work as a manager with the California state office of the U.S. Department of Education Troops to Teachers program. In this job I helped veterans transition from serving in uniform to serving in K-12 classrooms. This program was administered locally by first the Sacramento County Office of Education and then the San Diego County Office of Education. I truly enjoyed the opportunity to mix education and the military.

In July, 2010, I retired from Troops to Teachers and I am now looking for another opportunity to serve my community and country. I want to use my time to volunteer in a capacity that can use my talents and background in education. Serving on the school board is a perfect match for this goal.

After I graduated from the Naval Academy I married my high school sweetheart. We have been married 37 years now. My wife, the former Mary Renfree, was the head cheerleader at Kennedy and is still recognized (she honestly looks nearly the same!) by many classmates in the Pocket area. Additionally, the entire Renfree clan is well known in Sacramento and her late uncle has a park named after him in the Pocket! When I was on active duty, she was one of those remarkable Navy wives who can do it all while their spouse is deployed. And Mary had to do it all. I made six very long deployments and many, many shorter ones while in the Navy when she had to be both mom and dad to our children. (In fact, I was only home 10 months out of our first three married years!) Mary received teaching credentials in Maryland, New York and California and has been teaching for over 25 years. She is currently the head of tutoring programs and a reading specialist for Mercy Education Resource Center.

Our pride and joy are our children and grandchild. Our eldest son, Micah, earned his BA in history from Sienna College and then graduated from Vermont Law School. He initially chose to serve in the Air Force, but then he transferred to the Army where his talents were needed. Last year he returned from Iraq after leading 150 combat missions as a captain. He now serves fellow veterans by being a rater with the VA working in Salt Lake City.

Our daughter, Meredith, took many academic awards and prizes while earning her Bachelor's (double major in history and English) at Gettysburg College and her M.A. in English from Boston University. She has taught English and film study at both Boston University and Christopher Newport University in Virginia. Meredith and her husband gave a prize to Mary and me when she delivered our grand daughter in April of this year! Meredith was married to a Navy pilot last year in Clarksburg Church. Her husband is a helicopter pilot who has completed multiple deployments to the Iraqi theater. He currently is on shore duty as an instructor in San Diego. Like her mother, Meredith is learning that the hardest job in the military is to be a military spouse. That is not a verbal bouquet; it is the truth! Mary is the world's best grandma and I was born to be a grandpa! So we are enjoying this new phase of life!

Our youngest son is a 2006 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, CO. Another history major with a Russian language minor, he was recently promoted to captain. We are very proud that he earned his silver pilot wings and is now stationed in Germany flying support missions to Afghanistan and Iraq; as well as to all of Africa and Europe.

As you can tell, service to our community and country is a hallmark of our family. At the Naval Academy we learned the value of a strong work ethic. For the past forty years I have been used to working 60 hours per week. Now that I retired this July, I want to apply these same energies to helping lift SCUSD back to the fantastic level that served my wife, my sisters, brother and me so very well. With your support and involvement, we can make our schools factories of excellence once again.