What were your experiences growing up and through high school and college?
Well, I was born on the peninsula, in San Mateo, and I grew up in the East Bay, in Walnut Creek. I lived there starting from kindergarten until I graduated from high school. I went on to UCLA and graduated with a degree in history. I didn’t originally go there to major in history. I actually went as an econ major and switched. UCLA is known for their motion picture television program. I wanted to get involved in media. I was a broadcaster on the radio there, KLA. I contributed to the newspaper as well. Academically, I took a number of history classes. I always enjoyed history. I had so many history classes that when I went in to a counselor before my junior year, they said, "Look if you want to graduate from UCLA, you really don’t have any other choice but to go into history." So I became a history major my junior year and from that point on I took only history classes. I graduated with a major in history, but my career goal was to coach college athletics. I had previously talked to football coaches at UCLA about becoming a college football coach. They gave me great advice. The told me that I needed to start at the high school level. I started coaching high school sports for two years while I was still going to college while I tutored special needs students. This was my start in education. In the spring of my senior year I was told by a high school in southern California that if I wanted, I could teach and coach there if I wanted. It was an interesting idea but I landed a job in insurance in San Francisco. Right after I graduated, I tried the business world for a month or two and didn’t like it at all. I called the school in southern California and asked them if they still had an opening. They did. So I went down there and they hired me a few weeks before the school year started. That is how got I started in education right out of college. I have been teaching ever since. After my first three years, I realized that I should have some kind of classes in education so I could be a more effective educator. So I went to Stanford and obtained a graduate degree and a credential in education. I was also a graduate assistant for the football team for those two years. That was in ‘82 and ‘83. In ’82, the claim to fame there, was that it was John Elway’s senior year and the year of “The Play” between Cal and Stanford when the band was on the field and all that nonsense. I was there as part of the coaching staff. I just kept teaching from there: St. Lawrence Academy, Bellarmine College Prep, St. Helena High School, moving from the Bay Area further north with my family so my wife and I could raise our children in a smaller country like atmosphere. We ended up in Hidden Valley Lake in 2003 where we currently reside. In 1993, I started teaching at Ursuline and I have been here ever since.
How was the change from being a teacher and Assistant Athletic Director to being the Assistant Principal?
It is not a job that would be easy to do if you haven’t been around education for a while. I have been in the classroom for many years and I feel comfortable enough with students and teachers and administrators to understand how the system works. I feel comfortable with making decisions that are school-wide instead of those that have more to do with what’s going on in class. The transition at this point has been relatively easy. The only thing that is difficult is that I spent many years designing things that we did in class. The amount of time that it takes to design, implement, and evaluate the activities followed by the correcting of papers and strategizing how to motivate students. It takes a great deal of time. Now, doing an administrative job, my mind isn’t going in the same directions. I don’t have to use as much time planning and prepping and what not as I did before. Now I use the mind power to do other kinds of things. The unfortunate part is that I lose the individual contact, with the students. The connection I had developed with people that I had in class is different as an administrator. If I had you in class, I probably know what sport you are playing and what kind of personality you have, , what’s going on at home, the result being that and I can communicate with you a lot easier. When a student comes into my office now it is a different situation where they are not as open to communicate. I have to get to know the people who come in and begin a relationship with them which can be challenging given the various reasons why I am meeting with them which are not always pleasant. I need to have a strategy for getting to know students in a positive way outside the classroom setting. There are a couple of other issues: One. The rhythm of the day is different. I don’t know what class we are in when I am in my office. So I don’t get a sense of the movement of the day. When you are in the classroom, you understand that. Two. The connection with students is different. It’s great in the AP US History class which I still teach and it’s a lot of fun. I know students outside of class, but the rest of the students I don’t. I know a major part of being in a school is the community and the relationships. This random guy who I tell to tuck his shirt in, you know there is not much community in that. That's the difference.
What is your favorite part about your job?
I think that one of my favorite parts is collaborating with people about what we are trying to do at this school. We get a chance to meet and brainstorm. I like problem solving and I like coming up with new ideas. I try to be creative with things and I know I also like the opportunity to meet with teachers about what is going on in classrooms and strategize about doing things better. Things can always be done better. Whether it is in a classroom or whether it is the school, we are always trying to make it better.
Is there any advice you would like to give the students here?
Well, what is necessary to make a class successful is the creation of community. The idea of making people feel comfortable in the room: students developing relationships with the teacher and the students with one another. That is what gives you the environment to have a learning community. For me, in my new capacity, I would like to be able to help create that community. You may say, ‘well we already have a community,’ and that is true, but how can we make it stronger in a way that people feel comfortable here and can communicate. If there are problems, that we can solve them collaborating together and it is not the administration against everyone. That would not be as productive. Instead, I have a role here to support the teachers and help to make the student experience successful. We should be working together on it. It shouldn’t be me running around, you know, against a bunch of anonymous students, smacking them with a hammer. Instead it should be the administration and the students all working together to make it the kind of place we want it to be. The students need a voice, they need to be heard, and feel like they have a role in deciding what happens here. If I had any advice, it would be that I would want to have the students to take an active role and see if we can’t create the climate of the school that we want; to make it a faith centered learning community that we feel comfortable coming to and we are proud of being part of.
What do you do in your spare time? What are your hobbies?
I love spending time with my family. They are the reason I do what I do. Any time I can come home and do something with my wife and/or daughters I am happy. I have five children; two of my daughters are still at home. One is a junior in high school and the other is in sixth grade, so I spend time with them. We just got a new dog because my fifteen year old dog just passed away four weeks ago. We spend time with the new dog training him and playing with him. I love sports as well. I am a fan of a lot of sports and I stay up on a lot of things that are going on, whether it is baseball, football, basketball, hockey, all kinds of things. I played a lot of sports in school and I coached many different sports, so that is something I’m very interested in. I do a lot of driving because I live an hour away at Hidden Valley Lake so I will listen to Sports Talk Radio, Old radio shows, or Political talk shows. When I have some quiet time I like to read a good history book, or research something that I am interested in. I read a lot and I was just reading about the Dred Scott case just for fun. Things that keep me busy, but I do a lot of reading and I don’t like not having something that I’m either working on or thinking about. I like keeping my mind occupied.
Are there any closing thoughts or anything you would like to add in?
I think the only thing we haven’t discussed is the merging of the schools. Even though it isn’t a typical merge, I really believe that the school is doing a great job of bringing in a large community that wasn’t originally part of their mission. I am sure that this has affected the young men who came here for an all-boys education. For the most part the Ursuline identity has melted away. We are one and the former all-boy Cardinal Newman students have done a great job of making the girls feel welcome. The administration of Cardinal Newman has done a great job of bringing in former Ursuline employees and creating a sense of community. The result is here we are with a new school that has a lot of great things on its horizon, from new buildings and new programs to just a completely different environment. Not that the old one wasn’t successful, but we have a chance to be much better. In a lot of ways it goes along with the thoughts of what John Henry Cardinal Newman said, “To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” I’m excited to be a part of that change and to see what the future holds for this school and its students.
