I grew up in southwest Ohio in a working class family of nurses, teachers, police, and civil servants. They instilled in me an indestructible work ethic, independence, duty, grit, compassion, love of family, and sense of humor. I have been working since the age of 12, delivering newspapers 7 days a week and then as a busboy, fry cook, and waiter. In 1984, I moved to Virginia and worked as a laborer, carpenter, and cable TV installer during the day - at night I got a community college degree in Architecture. This led me to working in Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) doing construction and utility drawings and designs. Starting at a young age, I had a passion for growing plants and animals - including my love of fish and aquariums. In my late 20s, I developed and commercialized an indoor, recirculating fish farm system - raising hybrid striped bass. That, and a job working for a company on a local military construction project, brought me to Orange County in 1997. I picked my property near the vineyards in Barboursville to expand my fish farm operation and be a part of what is now called the “agritourism industry” (back then it didn’t have a name). Then life threw me a curveball: an international strip-mining operation was proposed to build right on my property line. It threatened not only my business, family, and home but neighboring farms, a 150-year-old Freetown community, and world-class vineyards. After a five-year battle—including legal fights—we found the company an alternative. During that time, my fish farm was on hold-all my investment and time lost. Instead, I grew my company’s facility management and logistics business. I then became a partner in a local firm, helping large companies solve some of their toughest challenges. At present, I am an executive at Chimera Enterprises, where I have led a nearly ten-fold increase in revenue (currently $15 million annually). With my wife, Sunnie Capelle, a spectral scientist, I am also a partner in C-Star Solutions, a company that conducts R&D supporting U.S. warfighters. I raised my family in Orange County. My two children attended Orange County Public Schools (K-12) and graduated from UVA and JMU, each with engineering degrees. I've always been active in our community. I have volunteered for many local groups and coached youth soccer for more than a decade. During the five years working with the Barboursville community to stop the strip mine - and during the more than 20 years since - I have thought a great deal about property rights: the definition, how the concept could be applied fairly, and what did that really mean? I know first-hand how a bad local government decision can impact lives-sometimes taking our dreams. That’s why when asked again and again to serve on the Planning Commission, I have always agreed. Because I never want anyone else to go through what I and my neighbors in Barboursville did. I understood, and still do, that any legal business has a right to flourish just as I had a right to my farming operation. I believe now, as I did then, that every project needs to be located in the appropriate place. I voted in favor of a community solar project that fed directly to the Town of Orange because it made sense to me. And I voted against the industrial solar plant in True Blue along the Rapidan River because it did not make sense to me to take farmland and history. I will continue to examine each issue that comes before me in depth, and measure each decision one at a time. Each of us is the sum of our experiences. I am a farmer, a businessman, a public servant, an entrepreneur, and a family man. I believe we can strive for a balance in life and that choices must be appropriate to the community, the land, the ability to make a living, and our future.