About Me

A short bit about me

I grew up in Detroit, Michigan experiencing first-hand how great cities can rise and fall, driven by both policies they control and other factors they don’t, which has deeply shaped my view of Seattle’s trajectory over the 13 years I’ve called this place home. I’m the father of two young kids, the son of a mailman and a dietitian, and the grandson of a first-generation Polish American who raised three boys by herself as a World War II widow. She was a tough woman.

Coming from a working-class family, I graduated college with $70,000 in student loans. And despite my deep interest in politics, I pursued the first steps of my career in business. After a 17-year career working first for large companies like Target and Amazon and then spending nearly eight years in the startup world, helping scale an early-stage data analytics firm to consistent, profitable growth, I ultimately decided to pivot toward government.

The reason for that change was personal. My private sector days were exciting, but always left me feeling the need for a deeper value in what I did, and there a feeling inside me that needed to have an answer for my kids that I would be proud of when they were old enough to really understand what their dad did. Since making this decision, I sleep well at night knowing this is the path I’m supposed to be on.

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For my entire adult life, I’ve been a small-L liberal. I still am. But I am deeply worried that the way my party has treated our budgets has us headed toward a bad place, and that worry has only intensified.

We can all agree that what’s happening at the federal level is corrupt beyond belief, hateful and callous, and a disgrace to what our country should be. But we also have to be willing to say that our own local governments need to manage their fiscal house better.

We simply have not done that, and those decisions and policies, many of them led or supported by my opponent, take time to fester but become very difficult to stop once they take hold.

That happened in Detroit, which was once among the wealthiest cities in the world. It was a world-class tech and pharmaceutical hub, with industries that were thought to be bulletproof. Policies that push businesses out and allow growing disorder can create a bad spiral, and I worry we’re flirting with that tipping point pretty recklessly.

Everyone is worse off if that happens, and we need leaders who are willing to say that, even if it means pushing back on their own base. I don’t think my opponent has done that.

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Over the last year, I’ve worked in a policy role and seen firsthand the operations and inner workings of local government. It’s often a caricatured idea that government should run like a business. It shouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t hold it to a high standard of efficiency, accountability, and responsible use of our tax dollars. After all, that is the best way to provide more benefits to our community for the same investment.

My career has been built creating and leading strong teams, demonstrating thoughtful leadership, managing multibillion-dollar budgets, and learning how to quickly identify opportunities through data, measurement, and competent analysis, skills that translate directly to many of our biggest challenges.

I bring a practical blend of firsthand experience running and growing businesses and a year of firsthand work in local government, where I believe I’ve built a very positive reputation in short order with the second floor of City Hall.

I deeply believe important roles should be contested. In the absence of another candidate stepping forward, I felt I needed to take a stand on the direction of our region. I left my job to pursue this full time. I’m obviously behind in name recognition, funding, and basic campaign infrastructure.

I’m going to close those gaps quickly. Follow along and I think you’ll find I’m willing to say many of the things we wish our politicians said – earnest, hard truths, that align with what we see with our eyes, feel with in our wallets, and shake our head at asking, “how do we continue to be okay with this.” 

If that resonates with you, please sign-up to join our campaign in whatever way you can.