I received my bachelor’s degree in Engineering Physics at Oregon State University in 1975.  I then moved to Richland, Washington to work on my Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and to work on a program to develop low cost solar cells.  I continued to work on the solar cell program after receiving my Master’s Degree from Washington State University in 1977.  In 1980 I moved back to Corvallis and got a job at Hewlett Packard as an R&D process engineer.  Over the years I moved into management and eventually became the manager for the cleanroom operations at the site.  The operation developed new technologies and manufactured products, initially for integrated circuits, and then for inkjet printheads.  I was also active with Sematech, initially with its’ Manufacturing Methods Council, and then as a member of the Board of Directors.  Sematech is a consortium of semiconductor chip manufacturers to advance new technology development and manufacturing.  The consortium member companies included AMD, IBM, Intel, TI and several other semiconductor companies.

I retired from HP in 2007.   The next four years I consulted on a Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA) program to develop very high efficiency solar cells. 

In 2016 I realized that all of my neighbors were in the Corvallis Rural Fire Protection District (CRFPD) but my property was in the Philomath Fire District.  I petitioned to change districts and in 2017 my property was annexed into the Corvallis Rural Fire Protection District.  This was my first introduction to the Corvallis Rural Fire Protection District and its’ board.  Bob Conder, the CRFPD Chair, encouraged me to attend some of the board meetings to learn more about the CRFPD.  When a board position opened up in 2020 I ran for the position and became a board member.

In my second year as a board member, I learned that the Corvallis Fire Department’s needed new water sources in rural areas and that their number one priority was to add a water cistern in the Oak Creek area.  I thought that this was something I could help move forward, so with the board’s approval, I took on this project.  After several months of planning, construction on the project began in May, 2021.  The project has taken longer than planned, in part, because of a shortage in contractors and materials caused by the COVID pandemic.  The initial startup and testing will be March 31, 2022 and should be fully operational very soon.