I moved to Gaithersburg in 1988 to join GE Information Services’ GEnie online service, which was headquartered in Rockville. I grew up in Philadelphia and lived for 4 years in Silicon Valley (working at Atari) before moving here. I am married to Michelle Harris, known professionally as Dr. Michelle New of the Kentlands Kids child psychology practice and formerly at Children’s Hospital in DC. Michelle and I have a teen-aged son, Sam, who is on the autism spectrum and attending the special Kennedy Krieger school in Beltsville.

We also have two grown daughters, Elizabeth and Jessica, from my late first wife, Karen. Liz and Jess both graduated from Quince Orchard High, and Liz earned her college degree at Florida State while Jess graduated from the University of Maryland College Park. Liz is mother to our grandchildren, Ben and Corinne.

I grew up in Philadelphia, in the working-class Northeast section of the city. My father was a union worker in clothing factories, and I was the first in my family to attend college. I was a Cub and Boy Scout and was senior patrol leader while my dad was an assistant scoutmaster. I graduated from Northeast High School where I was in the math-science magnet school and a National Merit Finalist. My extracurriculars included our computer programming club (in the days before home computers), a science program called SPARC that was sponsored by NASA, the student government, the literary magazine, and more.

I have spent my career in technology companies, mainly with high growth companies including (for those of you with long memories) Commodore Computers (where I was a member of the Commodore 64 and VIC-20 launch teams) and at Atari in Silicon Valley. I spent 5 years at GE in Rockville and earned my bachelor’s degree at night from UMUC while working there. Then I joined a video game startup, Simutronics, and was the head of the business side of the company as we grew during the dot com era, eventually reaching 400 employees and contractors and earning a spot on the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing private companies twice. I earned my MBA at Wharton during my time at Simutronics, taking classes (and doing mountains of homework) on weekends. Since the company was sold, I have been a program manager in the IT space, now with Amazon Web Services.

As with most computer and video game professionals, I am a science fiction fan (I worked at some of the first Star Trek conventions – but never in costume) and an avid board game player. I was a DJ on a college radio station and I have an immense library of rock, jazz, and soul music. Michelle loves hip-hop and pop, so the only music we can enjoy together comes from a few years in the early 80s. I am very happy that my daughters share an appreciation for classic rock music, and maybe a bit less happy that Sam seems to lean toward his mother’s top-40 pop songs — although he also loves ZZ Top and Queen.

Speaking of Sam, let me talk just a bit about being the parent of a special needs child. Sam was diagnosed at age two. Before his second birthday, we saw no issues – he was happy, very social, and was developing a large vocabulary. He could work the room at Starbucks and knew everyone’s name. Three months later, he was a different kid. Most of his vocabulary was gone, and he was in his own world. It was terrifying and heartbreaking. Michelle knew who to call, and soon we had a team of doctors and therapists. They have been working with Sam ever since.

Autism is a spectrum, and all of the people on the spectrum are different. Sam has difficulty expressing himself verbally, but he has other ways to let you know what he needs. He is still the sweetest, most affectionate teenager you would ever want to meet. Our goal is to make sure Sam can achieve his potential, whatever that may be, and we are working to help him to be able to be self-sufficient as an adult. Our dream is to have a real conversation with him someday… and our fear is that he won’t be able to take care of himself in our world.

Michelle is not a specialist in autism, but her professional background has enabled her to take charge of the situation, to build the best possible support network around him. And my role is to be his Dad, to wrestle with him and play outside, to teach him to fly kites and to swim.

I was selected to join the Gaithersburg City Council in 2014 when a seat opened up. I was elected to a full term in 2015 and re-elected in 2019 and again in 2023. I am serving our people because I love living here and I appreciate the opportunity to give something back. I was effective as a leader in the Kentlands HOA and got to know our city officials and staff over the years, and I have been friends with our former mayor and now county council member, Sidney Katz (of course, most of us in the city are friendly with Sidney, he is amazing that way). Having gotten to know how things work here, it was clear that the city government was well-run and was managed by reasonable people. When I was a young man in Philadelphia, I volunteered for some campaigns, and I could see what big-city politics was like. Here, good people can make a positive contribution.

I am serving on the Gaithersburg City Council for many reasons. Please see the other pages on this site for the whole story.