Personal Statement:

My values are the traditional, wholesome American values: love of family, love of God, love of country. I value social justice, tolerance, and liberality to one’s fellow man. My wife and I are constantly told what a special family we have and how uncommonly wholesome, happy, and well balanced (and beautiful) are our five children. I know my success as a father reflects well on my wife’s and my values and how we have instilled our ethics into our children in a very natural way. People ask me how I account for our success. I think the answer is that when the culture of the family is loving, engaged, stimulating and complete, children will not feel a void that they will feel compelled to fill elsewhere. I have no prouder accomplishment or tangible example of my values than my family.

I was born and raised in Montana, Great Falls and Missoula primarily. My parents had tragic family histories that they both rather miraculously overcame. My younger sister and I could not have asked for more caring and loving parents. My dad’s father, an Austro-Hungarian immigrant, was with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. My dad was the only white boy in his grade school on the reservation. He was a lonely boy who rode the range to escape unhappiness at home. He remained a cowboy at heart all his life, even after retiring to New England. Professionally, he was the state range manager for the Social Conservation Service. Where he got his service heart, considering his family situation, I will never know but his everyday examples of love, devotion and goodness in serving his family, church, and friends were a profound inspiration to me from my earliest days. My mother was an intellect who was born in the wrong place (just off the Crow Indian reservation near the Custer Battlefield) and the wrong time to fulfill her many gifts. She was a working woman at a time when that was not appreciated. Her greatest professional accomplishment was as editor of the Montana Business Quarterly. She nurtured her children’s thirst for knowledge and culture, taking great pride in my scholastic and musical accomplishments and my sister’s eventual great success as one of the country’s leading experts on American material culture and historic textiles in particular.

Despite loving growing up in the beauty and goodness of Montana, I had always felt a call to New England. Its landscape and history resonated in me somehow and I immediately felt at home in western Massachusetts after having graduated from Montana State University (summa cum laude) in chemical engineering. I thrived in the New England culture. The museums, the music, the history, the restaurants, the literature, the landscape were a revelation and profoundly affecting. My outlet for service was through my church, where I led many boards and was volunteer coordinator of the Amherst soup kitchen. Church also was where I met my wife.

In Massachusetts, I had a successful career as a chemical engineer but always felt something was missing. I did a lot of soul-searching. It had long bothered me that, though in my engineering and business profession I had developed valuable technical, administrative, and leadership expertise, I had unique gifts and special interests that were unlikely ever to be developed if I continued in my engineering career. I was concerned that an important part of me would go unfulfilled. It was my wife who first suggested private service to me. I immediately dismissed the idea. But it gnawed at me. I studied and talked to many, many people in the field. I was surprised at how private service seemed to draw the different threads of my life (the technical, the cultural, the service) together in a unique and amazing way. I felt in my service heart (a term then new to me) that this truly is where my bliss lay. How could I have not realized it before?

I take pride in my adaptability. There are aspects of formal service that are very appealing to me. I do it well and am happy doing it. But I know in my heart, that I am a friendly, approachable person and perhaps would more naturally fit into a somewhat less formal style of service – but with no slipping of standards.

I regard Administrative, Culinary, Property & Grounds, and Maintenance as my highest service standards.

Maintenance Standards: With my engineering background, I have the skills that will serve a household well in a home that has complicated systems (security, home theatre, HVAC, for example or remodeling and construction) that need to be understood, maintained, and that require a tech-minded individual to work with vendors. I am also “handy around the house” with repairs, plumbing, decorating, and general maintenance.

Administrative Standards: In my corporate career, I have acquired many administrative skills that will benefit a home requiring improved structure, communications (whether oral or written), hands-on supervision of staff, and assistance with travel. I have an eagle eye however for order and household cleanliness and will get down on my hands and knees to scrub what needs to be scrubbed.

Property and Grounds: I love creating beautiful outdoor spaces. I have twice been invited to have my gardens and yard featured on the annual Gardens of Amherst tour. I will provide a refined level of service to a household demanding meticulous landscape care. I also have a genuine love of animals.

I am also an accomplished amateur cook and can provide skilled kitchen labor when called upon. I would describe the Culinary and Property & Grounds standards as natural talents. I have been told that my combination of the technical, the practical, the aesthetic, and the heart is rare and valuable. I look forward to serving the family who agrees.