Category: Featured Member Profiles

I was born in 1967 in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and grew up amid the cornfields south of that bustling metropolis. I gradually came to feel that the farming life was not the best fit for me, so after high school I headed to Purdue University and obtained a degree in computer science. Upon graduating I moved to Beaverton for a software development job at Sequent Computer Systems (I remember it fondly) and have been living in the northwest ever since.

I’m currently on hiatus from software development, and I’m happy to have lots of flexibility in my daily schedule. It was maybe in late 2014 that I went to a Science Pub talk by Dr. Chris Goldfinger of OSU, who spoke about his research on the geological dating of past earthquakes by examining core samples taken from the ocean floor off the northwest coast – during earthquakes there are distinctive sediment layers that form after material from inland landslides washes out to sea. The talk wasn’t about earthquake preparedness, but it reminded me of the idea that I should invest some of my copious spare time in preparedness. Since I’m a rather geeky guy, it didn’t seem to be too much of a stretch to get a ham radio license and join ARES.

When I took the Technician exam in early 2015, the VEs told me that the General license would also be helpful for emergency communications, so I soon upgraded to General and joined MCARES. I felt like I still had a lot to learn about radio, and studying for the Extra exam seemed like a way to learn some more things, so that’s how I ended up with the Amateur Extra license class despite not being much of a radio person. I’m currently assigned to the PBEM team, which I think is quite a deluxe assignment in terms of the amenities that PBEM will offer after a disaster — electricity, running water, sewage holding tank, etc. I’ve also recently volunteered to host the monthly digital modes training net, during which we’ve been sending each other photos via SSTV. That’s a lot of fun because people send interesting photos, and we may add additional digital modes in the future depending on their predicted usefulness for emergency communications.

When I’m not sending pictures over the air via SSTV I like to run, do some woodworking, and I play the piano badly. I expect to do software development again at some point.

I’m originally from Boston, MA (longtime Celtics fan). I have business degrees from Ohio University, Babson, and The Wharton School – University of Pennsylvania. For the following 25 years I pursued career opportunities in the financial services industry. Roles that I’ve held include the responsibility for recruiting, training, and development for a Fortune 50 company, sales and marketing executive for a large financial products company, and a business consultant for an international consulting firm.

I left the corporate world to try my hand at entrepreneurship. Two companies were built from scratch, one sold to The Hartford Insurance Company and the second to the AICPA (American Institute for Certified Public Accountants).

I’m currently a college professor teaching business courses at Portland State University and Mount Hood Community College.

My wife and I moved to the northwest over 12 years ago. Deb joined a friend to start a business. They were the first franchisees in the northwest for what is known as Curves for Women circuit training. We live next to the Glendoveer Golf Course with our children and three noisy dogs.

Four years ago I began to pay more attention to how communities and families prepare (or aren’t prepared) for natural disasters and events. At the time the Portland NET program had a waiting list, so I completed the CERT program for Clark College (Vancouver). Later I completed the Portland NET program as well.

During the time I was participating in the NET program, I had a discussion with a firefighter regarding communications during a disaster. He strongly encouraged me to investigate amateur radio. I ended up taking the PBEM test prep, led at that time by Nate Hersey. While preparing for the test a fellow ARO suggested I prepare for all three test levels. It wouldn’t cost any more, and I could take them all in one sitting. My wife suggested that taking all three would be too much, and I should only focus on the Technician level. That’s all the motivation I needed. With my pride on the line, I prepared for and passed all three. Pride and panic set in because I was now legal to do something I had no idea how to do. I didn’t even have a radio yet!

So after some time and experience I’m much more confident about the role of amateur radio and participating with other hams. I am also aware of what I don’t know, and the importance of pursuing continued education and opportunities to gain experience. For reliable emergency communications, I’m convinced that amateur radio has the critical support role. This role is so important that as members of ARES, we must continue to work on improving our accuracy and professionalism in the execution of the activities to which we have committed. Lives may depend on us.

Being a licensed pilot, I consider the pilot training I received to be similar to the ARES radio training.

Most of the education and training to fly was about mastering emergency procedures, e.g. how to land a helicopter safely when the engine quits. Part of preparation included a catastrophic engine failure. I was trained to take a perfectly good helicopter up, and – at 1,000 feet – turn the engine off. You had to learn to instinctively put the ship into what is called autorotation and land safely. As a student pilot you would continue to “shoot autos” until you could do it without thinking. The most anxiety producing training: doing autorotations at night!

I see mastering emergency radio communications in a similar way. We need to be ready and act instinctively, and to act with great precision. To achieve this will take good practice. Good practice will generate confidence.

As the Training Manager, I’m committed to providing quality learning opportunities for each member, to learning and mastering skills, and gaining confidence in the execution of the role as an Amateur Radio Operator and member of ARES.

I am a member of the MCARES Red Cross served agency team. I have completed the MCARES ARRO certification and am currently working on my Net Control certification. I am also a member of the Portland Amateur Radio Club. I have supported the MS Walk, the Reach the Beach ride, the Portland Bridge Peddle ride, and the Portland Marathon. I lend my radio capabilities to my local Neighborhood Emergency Team serving as the Communications Lead/ARO for the Multnomah Village NET.

I also volunteer with the American Red Cross and the Columbia Slough Watershed Council. Boating has been a life-long avocation, and I draw on this to help the Watershed Council with their canoe excursions on the Slough. You may also encounter me out kayaking our local rivers and lakes.

I hail from Petoskey, Michigan and still visit frequently to see friends and family. Before moving to the Portland area, I lived in Houston, Texas where I worked for Baylor College of Medicine, Memorial Care System, and St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in the Texas Medical Center. I retired a few years ago from Kaiser Permanente where I worked in Human Resources for nearly 20 years.

Just recently, I agreed to serve MCARES as the Public Information Officer and to contribute articles to our monthly newsletter.

I am originally from the east coast and moved here to Oregon from Woodstock, NY with my family about 15 years ago. Workwise, I have had a wide and interesting (to me at least) array of experience. My first real job was building mixing boards for Dallas Music Industries, who are the same people who made the legendary “Mellotron” tape loop keyboard. A lot of bands in the 60s and 70s used them, including David Bowie, Yes, and Heart. From there, I went on to be a baker, short order cook, construction contractor, heavy suspension mechanic, and (my favorite job) industrial blacksmith. After years of blacksmithing, my back couldn’t take it anymore, so I ended up going to college at age 34, earning associate degrees in design and geology. In 1998, I met a guy with a great idea for selling independent musicians’ music online, so ended up taking a long break from college to help him build that business. We moved the business out here to Portland in the year 2000 and I eventually went back to school, getting a BS in social science and liberal studies. I began my studies at USC in 2013 and left the business shortly after to pursue my MPA and emergency management studies.

My connection to Ham radio comes from when I was very young. My older brother, Mike KA2MSL, and I “discovered” shortwave radio when we were kids. I remember being fascinated with hearing voices from the far reaches of the planet. Mike went on to become an openly obsessed electronics and radio aficionado and while I would help him out by climbing trees and towers to string up his latest antenna array, I decided to follow a different path, learning to play guitar and playing in various rock bands up into my 30s. When I began taking FEMA courses online and eventually came across information about Portland NET, I also started noticing that old familiar standby, ham radio, waiting in the background and realized I was in familiar territory. I finally signed up for the NET classes in winter of 2014 and ended up becoming friends with Marino KG7EMV who was in the same class. He encouraged me to at least get my ham ticket and to consider looking into ARES if I really wanted to learn more about radio and emergency communications. On Marino’s suggestion, I purchased an inexpensive Baofeng HT and tested for my technician’s license. After some nudging from Adam KF7LJH who is a member of my NET team, I finally came into an ARES meeting. As others have said, the spread of skills and personalities in this group is impressive if not intimidating at times and I am really happy to be a part of it.

At this point, I am an ARO for the Beaumont-Alameda/Wilshire NET, the Portland NET representative to the LEPC (Local Emergency Planning Committee), and I am just taking over the duties as information coordinator for the LEPC. I am also looking for other paid and volunteer opportunities in the EM field to enhance and bolster my education. I love being able to help people out and I consider the work ARES does as a critical part of our overall security. While I hope we never have to face a large earthquake or other devastating disaster, having experienced the impact of tornadoes and hurricanes I am confident that when all else fails, the excellent training and support we receive as ARES/RACES members will help us as we help others make it through the storm.

After completing my studies (Computer Science) and starting work, I moved to the States in 1993, first to Chicago, where my wife worked at the time, and later in the same year to Portland, where her family is originally from. I work in Information Technology as a System Engineer in Wilsonville for a major local company in the electronic design automation business.

I became interested in Amateur Radio a few years ago after a tragedy involving a California family lost in the southern Oregon wilderness. It took me a few years to act upon this emergency preparedness urge and finally in July, 2013 I took and passed the Technician exam.

From there the path has been the same beaten by many before me: the first trip to the local radio store (aka The Candy Store), the programming of the first HT, finding the frequencies of the local repeaters, listening – lots of listening. And, the experience of the first check-in, the frustration about not being heard and more trips to the store to get a better antenna, more cables, more books and so on.

Along the way something happened. I met people. Welcoming people; people helping out; and people explaining things and willing to see past the blunders of the new operators.

With time I realized how much dedication and passion for amateur radio there is in these individuals: the guy who every day orchestrates the rag chew net around commute hours; the folks who every day tirelessly and with infinite patience teach the art of passing formal NTS traffic; the repeater operators; the folks who teach classes in preparation for the license test; the guy who coordinates a VE team; the perpetual tinkerers and experimenters; and those who organize the work of others.

Despite all the jokes about amateur radio operators being a dying breed, I see encouraging signs all around me. Prompted by renewed focus on emergency preparedness, more people than ever are approaching this hobby. More and more “computer techies” are learning about the world of RF; exploring the airwaves by using a $20 digital TV USB dongle and turning it into an SDR receiver.

Overall I am very impressed by this Multnomah ARES group. We are a diverse bunch with people of all ages and backgrounds. Our leadership team is strong and I believe our growing ranks are proof of its effectiveness.

As for myself, this journey of exploration continues. After passing the General test this past January, I have started tuning into the HF bands. Every day I find something new to learn, forcing me to push myself harder and I could not be happier.

Self-reliance was part of growing up in Alaska. At 40 below, an ill-prepared and unlucky motorist could be dead from exposure in an hour. The 1964 Alaska earthquake hit when I was 13, and I remember five minutes of watching earth and buildings heave like ocean waves. Alaskans were not well prepared for the event, but they were so accustomed to helping each other out, living off the land, and making and repairing what they needed, that they managed remarkably well. I learned that with preparation, you never had to be uncomfortable, hungry, or afraid.

Ham radio operators were the heroes of the day, providing the only communication most Alaskans had with the outside world. To this day, Alaska provides free registration and vanity plates to licensed amateur radio operators as a gesture of gratitude for their service during the earthquake.

Neither of my parents had money nor went to college, but both of them put a high premium on saving and on formal education. I worked as an audio-visual technician for a small business that rented out movies and projectors around the state and then for the Anchorage Borough School District. I repaired television sets. I got my first ham radio license at 16, but didn’t do that much with it. I built all of my own Heathkits but didn’t have any guidance or test equipment, and I did not succeed in getting them to work properly. It was also around this time that I won a local competition and received a grant to travel through Europe with a dozen other teenagers, chaperoned by a local schoolteacher and an Alaska State Representative. The experience made a lasting impression.

For the two summers before attending Stanford to study mathematics, I was a technician in the Communications Division of the US Bureau of Land Management. I flew around Alaska servicing BLM equipment and running radio nets. I spent several weeks holding down a night shift, picking up weather reports from around the state. I made enough money to cover half of my Stanford room, board, and tuition.

While at Stanford, I studied physics under three Nobel laureates, and I survived all of this work by promising myself that when I graduated, I would indulge in my first “bucket list,” which included learning scuba diving, getting a private pilot’s license, and returning to Europe to study languages. My travels had taught me that knowing other languages was important.

After graduating, I followed a high school sweetheart to Portland and got my first job as a childcare worker. After a year I concluded that I was a better mathematician than I was a childcare worker and went to work for Portland General Electric in what became their Analytical Laboratory. I had a lot of fun at PGE, helping them build a precision measurement lab. I also worked as an environmental scientist, maintaining programmable field instruments for tracking air quality and metrology.

By the time I was 27, I had done skydiving and everything else on my bucket list except study languages. I sold everything and moved to Germany, where I enrolled in the language and culture program with the Goethe Institutes at Ulm, Baden-Württemberg, and then Boppard am Rhein in Germany. I spent another year with Alliance Francaise in Paris and L’Institute de Touraine in Tours.

When I got back to Portland in 1980, the lady I mentioned earlier introduced me to my future wife, Katie. I got hired by Portland General Electric again, this time in generation and financial planning. I moved to Phoenix, Arizona, in 1982, so that Katie could finish a Master’s in Industrial Engineering in Tucson. I worked at the Salt River Project for seven years in corporate and strategic planning, picking up an MBA along the way. Katie and I got married and our two boys arrived shortly thereafter. We moved back to Portland in 1989, and I put out a consulting shingle and started working on the Masters and PhD in mathematics at Portland State University. I got hired into Portland General Electric again in 1997 (when will they ever learn?), where I soon joined the Research and Development Group at Enron to do valuations and teach financial mathematics.

I put in about four years with both Enron’s and Portland General Electric’s power and natural gas trading floors and operations. (Oh, I have such stories…) In 1982, I was hired into the Northwest Power Planning Council, now the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, where I served in a nine-person team developing energy policy for the governors of the four Northwest states. Much of my work after finishing my PhD in 2000 has consisted of developing decision-support computer models. Among the tasks of this federal interstate agency is developing an electric power plant acquisition plan that is environmentally and economically consistent with existing generation in the Columbia River drainage basin. The Council’s Regional Planning Model (RPM) is my legacy, and it is currently being commercialized by Navigant Consultants, an international consulting service.

I retired in October 2012. I volunteer for our fellowship. I am also a Portland Bureau of Emergency Management Neighborhood Emergency Team (NET) team leader and a member of their citizen’s advisory Leadership Committee. I got my General amateur radio license in August 2012 and my Extra (AE7XP) that October. My radio interests are currently in antenna design and signal propagation. Katie recently launched her new career as a Unitarian Universalist minister. Katie and I want to do more travel and kayaking. My boys Scott and David are now men in their late 20s, and we are fortunate to have them and their girlfriends over for dinner from time to time. I’m hoping to pick up my French horn again after forty years and maybe even learn to sing. I want to start meditating regularly and to get back into shape. I think it would be fun to learn a couple more languages. I still have research interests in high-performance computing and certain areas of abstract mathematics. I have a dozen electronics books and projects sitting unfinished on my desk. Maybe I’ll finally get back to that anti- gravity drive. Glad I finally got that hyperactivity thing under control. Now, if I could just find my way out of this cardboard box.

I grew up during World War II and the interest in radio was popular even in grade school. In the first year of cub scouts you built a crystal set and in the third year you could even build a two tube battery powered “Bread Board” radio that really worked well. My paper route money went to the local radio repair shop.

I became aware of amateur radio in high school and got my Novice in 1953 and upgraded to General January, 1954. I had the advantage of never having much money and had to build my station equipment.

I joined the Naval Reserve when I was in high school and was taking the Electronic Technician 3rd Correspondent class. But when they found that I was a ham, they sent me to a shortened Radioman school saying that the Navy needs RMs more than ETs. Then the Naval Security Group offered an even better job and I became a CT(M). I was in the Naval Reserve for eight years but they weren’t keeping me employed enough and I wasn’t getting enough part time at the Union Pacific. I started looking for a better job and eventually went to work at Pacific Bell in Portland and found a lot of ham friends there.

When the FCC changed the classes and I had a commercial 1st class phone, I just went right away to the FCC and took the Advanced test (and passed), because the Extra had the 20 wpm telegraph test and my code was rusty and I couldn’t print fast enough. A suggestion was to use cursive but engineering classes required printing so I had to learn it all over again. Finally in 1979 I got my Extra.

My wife one day said, “Do you think I could learn the stuff to get a license?” She had retired from a Telco technical job to be a stay-at-home mom. I was certain she could because she was pretty good at her job and the company had begged her to stay. She and another wife in the Hoodview club took the Novice class and passed. Without telling anyone they started working on upgrading and not only passed the Technician but passed the code test for General. She got her Advanced and was active on the bands until her passing in 1990.

Jeff, my oldest, got his Novice giving him the Radio merit badge. Kenn, my youngest, got his Novice and at the Jubilee at Gettysburg missed Tech by one question. Later he got his Technician and later upgraded to General and has been active in Washington County ARES.

I retired in May of 1999 from US West and it allowed me to travel to Arizona to visit family and go on Ham radio social events and be active in my church. It also let me get to build the station I had dreamed of.

I enjoy various modes and HF contesting, supporting the Hoodview club and, because we lived in the unincorporated area for many years, supporting the East County and City of Gresham even though I now live in Portland.

I have lived in Portland for 36 years. I live with my wife and daughter in NE Portland with our pup, Beau. We are all avid Timbers Fans and I like to ski, hike, travel and cook. I am a life long Buddhist. I own my own business in graphic arts and it has kept me very busy. In the last year I have had to reduce my volunteer activities.

It looks like I will be able to start to resume my ARES activities in the next month and I am looking forward to that very much. I come from a family of volunteers. I have been a volunteer Firefighter and EMT and eight members of my family are now or have been involved with volunteer first response for 35 years.

I started my ECOMM path back in 2003 when I took the City of Portland Neighborhood Emergency Team training. After taking the training I worked with my neighborhood team and another neighborhood team on using FRS/GMRS radios within our neighborhoods. It become apparent that we needed a way to communicate outside of neighborhoods.

At about that time I was involved in CERT–NET Rodeo (skills drill) sponsored by Washington County. During the drills all of the communications were going through Washington County ARES volunteer radio operators and I approached them and asked how to get involved. They said the first thing I needed to do was get my Amateur Radio license. So I went to Powell’s and bought the Technician study book and in 3 weeks of self study I was ready to take the test for my license.

About a month after that I found out about Multnomah County ARES and attended my first meeting. During the first year I received my General license. We were a pretty small group of people, then about six years ago the group really started to grow with the hard work of our leadership. My main interest in ARES is field work. I like to be outside using my radio. I also am very interested in the use of digital over radio communications applied to tactical uses. I have volunteered in pretty much every local event from the Portland Marathon to Hood to Coast. In that first year, I took the FEMA Public Information Officer class. At the time only 12 ARES County Public Information Officers in the country had taken the training. I also have taken the ARRL Public Information Officer Training. The Public Information Officer for any ARES group has two main responsibilities. The first, to convey any and all necessary information to the Public in a concise, accurate and timely manner so that the EC, leadership, and volunteers can spend their time fulfilling their duties. And second, to promote awareness of ARES in the community and its mission of citizen emergency communicators helping our served agencies fulfilling their response in any event.

I’ve been interested in electronics since I was a kid. My dad was an industrial electrician and brought home lots of old electronics bits for me to investigate, though I must admit that most of my self-directed “investigation” involved more disassembly, desoldering, and sorting of components into parts bins, than learning and applying electronics theory. I do recall one particularly illuminating experiment I performed around the age of 8, which involved an electrolytic capacitor and an AC wall socket. See, I understood that capacitors would store a charge when connected in parallel with a DC source, but failed to grasp, until that moment, how they behaved in an AC circuit. A shower of sparks and a tripped circuit breaker taught me a valuable lesson or two.

All throughout my childhood, I maintained that same curiosity about electronics, but lacked an end to the means – a goal to which I could apply the concepts I was learning. I had books full of amplifier and power supply schematics, but what could I amplify? What would I power? I think all along I needed amateur radio to help guide and focus my interests, but I wasn’t even aware of its existence. The addition of a new family member in my middle school years – an 80286-based computer – sent me in a whole new direction, learning about programming, operating systems, and digital communications, which has in turn led to employment in technical support, software quality assurance, web development, system administration, and telecommunications.

Sometime around 1995, in my college years, I learned of amateur radio. I found it interesting but didn’t know anyone who was licensed, and didn’t have the time or money to pursue the hobby. When the Great Coastal Gale of 2007 cut off all communication with family on the southwest Washington coast, I felt helpless and thought again about amateur radio. I decided that earning my amateur radio license and getting trained in providing emergency communications would be one way I could make myself useful the next time a disaster struck our region. I studied hard and got my Technician license in January, 2008, then bought a J-pole and an old, used Kenwood TM-773, which I nervously sat in front of many a night before mustering the courage to key the mic and check into the Portland Amateur Radio Club’s Monday night net.

I went through the Portland Neighborhood Emergency Team training in the Winter of 2009, made my first long-distance QSO, with W6YX, via the U/v FM repeater on board the International Space Station, then upgraded my license to General. I checked into the occasional FM 2-meter net, and attended an ARES meeting or two, but otherwise remained fairly inactive until I attended the NET/CERT/ARES “radio tour” in May, 2012. That got me motivated to start volunteering for event communications, and by the end of the year I had worked at least 8 events and a fire station go-kit exercise or two, and I was hungry for more. Since then I have become more active in Multnomah County ARES, have helped organize communications for Walk MS and the Disaster Relief trials, and became the team leader for the PBEM ECC team.

In addition to emergency communications, I am also interested in amateur satellites, digital modes, software-defined radio, and, thanks to my success in the December 2013 MCARES contest-style drill-from-home and encouragement from K7ATN and others, I have a growing interest in VHF+ contesting. Maybe someday I’ll get on HF…

After getting my technician license, I got involved with Multnomah County ARES and started to attend the meetings.

Somewhere along the way I was connected with Garrett AF7RF. I can’t thank him enough for taking the time to come to Lewis & Clark College, which is where I work, and help me with my hand held radio. I have had tremendous support from the Director of Campus Safety to add equipment to our readiness program. I called upon Garrett to steer me in the direction of purchasing a dual band for the college as well. In February, 2013, I upgraded to a General license. Next on the agenda was the purchase of a high frequency radio. I called upon Garrett yet again, and he suggested a good HF radio to purchase for the college and came out to install the antenna. I really enjoy the friendships I have developed through Multnomah County ARES and the learning process, which is never ending! I have since upgraded to the Extra ticket and am waiting for a new call sign.

In my spare time I am a competitive trap shooter and hold a couple of state shooting titles. My husband and I also have nationally ranked field trial dogs and compete in other American Kennel Club events as well.