I was born and attended high school in Olympia, Washington. My grandfather bought 100 acres of land on Black Lake from the original homesteader. He farmed it for 50 years mostly for personal consumption. I grew up on that farm which had declined to 50 acres. My mother didn’t want our homeplace to become a development so she sold most of our land to the County at a discount and now it’s Guerin Park.
I came east for my education earning my BA from Yale and, following service with the Peace Corps in Thailand, a Masters in Public Policy from Princeton.
Following graduate school, I joined the New York City Health Services Administration when it was established in 1970. I headed the City’s Bureau of Alcoholism Services and developed a hospital-based alcoholism treatment program for NYC.
I like to think that I played at least a small role in saving the NYC public hospital system during the fiscal crisis which started in 1975. I served as healthcare manager for the New York State Financial Control Board and later as Budget Director for the NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation and finally Chief Financial Officer of Lincoln Hospital.
In 1984, I left the public sector to become head of product development for a start up HMO company based in NYC called Sanus Corp. This was a breakout period for the HMO industry. Although managed care has become unpopular, the initial savings and reduced premiums led to rapid growth. Within three years Sanus became the largest health insurer in Texas and covered a robust service area from Baltimore to Richmond on the East coast. The company was acquired by New York Life in 1987 and finally by Aetna in 1998 resulting in my departure.
I moved to Columbia Maryland to become Vice President of Product Development with Magellan Behavioral Health which managed the mental health component of health insurance plans for Aetna, most Blue Cross plans and other large insurers.
In 2007, I started my own business, Keyboard Communications, helping companies manage their digital advertising programs—primarily Google AdWords. I ended up with a small group of clients selling very specialized, high-cost products including industrial fans, waterproof closures, ophthalmological equipment, and underdeck drainage systems.
My clients used AdWords as virtually their only sales tool and marketed to all North America with some additional international business. I brought this business to Delaware retiring in 2015.