Cámara de Representantes del los Estados UnidosCandidato para Distrito 52

Only two when my Navy officer father moved us here from Milwaukee, WI, I have grown up here in San Diego, graduating from St. Augustine High School in 1985.  I have lived and studied in Asia, where I met my wife (from Malaysia).  We married in 1995 and have raised our two boys in Mira Mesa.  They are now off to college, with the older boy heading to UC Irvine and the younger to Arizona State University.

During this time I have built a successful career and business in information technology, specializing in cyber security.  I have also given thousands of volunteer hours in my community, having been elected to two terms on the Mira Mesa Community Planning Group where I served as Secretary for five years and Chairman for three.  During that time I saw up close what kind of leadership and support our locally elected officials need from their congressional representative.  I am running to provide that leadership.

Coming to this race from a career in cyber security, I understand the direction the debate needs to be taken.  We must start asking questions about "ownership" of the data we originate as we go about our daily lives.  If we "own" the data, we will have enforceable rights to require that data we originate be deleted once "the bill has been paid."  Our unique genomic sequence - perhaps the very essence of the "digital you" - can now be "owned" by companies providing ethnic makeup reports.  We must be asking what they are doing with this data... And what happens to it should the company go bankrupt and its assets (including the data) be sold.

I have the professional background needed to lead this conversation.

I consider myself a conservative.  But I am deeply disappointed with how - since the financial crisis - conservatism has morphed into corporatism; they are not the same things.  Big Business is not free enterprise.

I believe conservatism essentially prefers civil society over political society.  As I work in the community with people from all political persuasions I am struck by how much we agree on when we consider our intentions for our community, state, and country. I am skeptical, however, of government when it comes to realizing these good intentions.  I have been around government enough to see how a bureaucracy's first priority is perpetuating its own existence and expanding its claim on the budget.  Too often government is where good intentions go to die.  I believe we will be much more successful seeing our good intentions come to fruition if we insist on pursuing them in civil society.  This means government becomes smaller and does less, and funding migrates away from bureaucracies (political society) and to local community groups - who understand the needs better and can make more productive use of public funds.