About Me

I was raised in Northern California (Shasta County) on an apple farm and went to high school in Oregon. After graduating from Claremont McKenna College in 1993, I joined my cousin in Kona working in a farming/landscaping business. I traveled the Pacific while crewing on an escort boat for Te Aurere, the Polynesian voyaging canoe from Aotearoa (New Zealand). After travels and more construction work in Kona, I went to law school at UH and Berkeley in California.
For five years, I worked with the Trust for Public Land’s Hawai’i office working on land conservation projects throughout the Islands. I'm now working with Evolution Sage, trying to counter global warming and transition Hawai'i to a zero-carbon economy. I currently split my time between Palolo Valley and Boulder, Colorado, where my wife Maxine is an Environmental Law professor.

Why I Love Hawaii

*Come from a small town and like connected communities!
*A connection between land, culture, and people like no other place in the world.
*Sovereign Spirit.
*Neighbors take care of each other.
*Avocados as big as bowling balls from my mom's coffee farm in Kona!

Interests

*Climate change and impacts on Hawai'i.
*Basketball
*Public policy and the politics of sustainability.
*Local agriculture.
*Los Raiders!