I was born an embarrassing number of years ago in Boston, Massachusetts, and I spent much of my childhood in New London, Connecticut. When I was 12, my family spent a year in Italy--primarily in Rome, which I still consider another home town. This year abroad was certainly an eye-opener after a rather sheltered childhood in a comfortably middle-class suburban neighborhood: I attended an Italian school (knowing only the barest smattering of Italian at the beginning of the year) and my family plunged into the urban Italian lifestyle. We explore ruins from the Roman Empire, museums, cathedrals... That year was a formative experience for me, giving me an opportunity to absorb a great deal about art, history, and culture. (And did I mention that Italian food is to die for??)
My junior high and high school years were spent in a small town in Maine, braving chilly winters and developing a keen appreciation for insulation. Actually, Maine is a beautiful state, blessed with a lovely coastline, rugged mountains, and (above all) FORESTS. Autumns in New England are not to be missed... It was in high school that I first encountered a chemistry course, and the subject appealed to me so much that I majored in it in college (after a lengthy debate between chemistry and math). My college years were spent at Harvard University, which is an amazing place to be a student, full of energy and creativity and opportunity. Outside of my science courses, I spent most of my time involved in music; I took almost the entire music major's curriculum, played trombone in the marching band and wind ensemble, and played rehearsal piano for the Gilbert & Sullivan production company.
After I graduated, I spent a couple of years working at a very small biomedical research firm in the Boston area, doing an assortment of not-very-interesting tests day after day.... It soon became apparent that job prospects for bachelor's degree holders in chemistry weren't particularly bright, so I went through the process of relearning my undergraduate chemistry (it's amazing how much you can forget in a year or two) and applying to graduate school. U.C. Berkeley decided I was worth a look, so off this Easterner went to California in his '67 Ford Fairlane.
I spent about three years at Berkeley, where I learned two important things about myself: first, I love to teach; second, I haven't the temperament for lengthy research projects. The community college system--which I had never heard of until I had been at Cal for a couple of years--turned out to be a natural place for me to go. I worked for seven semesters as a part-time instructor at Diablo Valley College in the East Bay, then managed to persuade the faculty at City College that I would be a decent enough colleague.... I've been at City College since 1990, where I've taught many of the courses that we offer, including Chem 32, 33, 40, 55, 101A, 101B, 110, 208A, 212A, and 212B. In 1997 the chemistry department elected me to be the department chairman (which is not as much of an honor as it sounds: it translates to a lot of paperwork. No one else wanted to do it....). After six years, my colleagues took pity on me, so I returned to the classroom full-time in 2003. Since then, I've primarily taught Chem 101A and Chem 32 at City College.
I met my future wife Debbie soon after I started teaching at CCSF, and we married in 1995. We're coming up on our 17th anniversary as of this writing (spring 2012). Debbie is awe-inspiring: she teaches math full-time at Foothill College, makes sure that I take care of myself (gets me out for exercise and curbs my tendency to eat too many meals at Taco Bell), and is an awesome mom to our twin daughters. Our daughters were born in February of 1998, and (as you can imagine) life has not been the same since - being a parent can be exhausting, frustrating, exasperating, and bewildering at times, but it is always amazing. It's not an exaggeration to say that my daughters are the light of my life.
In 1993, I signed a contract with Thomson/Brooks-Cole publishers (now Cengage publishing company) to write a textbook for Chem 32. The book went through five manuscript drafts and innumerable revisions, and there were certainly times when I thought I'd never see it in finished form, but it was finally finished in the fall of 2010. I'm honored that my colleagues at CCSF have adopted the book for Chem 32, both in preliminary form and in its final version. I'd also be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the many suggestions and recommendations from student users at CCSF that went into the final version; I'm forever grateful for all of the students that took the time to try to improve the book for future users.
Outside of school, my life is enriched by a variety of interests. I am an avid collector of topographic maps (since I was 16 years old) and a moderately fanatic bird-watcher (when I get the opportunity). I love to travel: I've been back to Europe three times and I've explored a good chunk of the United States and western Canada. I love to hike, with my specialty being crazy day hikes: I climbed Mt. Whitney (the tallest mountain in the "lower 48") in 2003, and I hiked clear across the Grand Canyon in 2004. Music has been an important part of my life since I was a child: I play the piano and the trombone, and I have written music for piano and for organ. My daughters took up the trumpet in 4th grade, and the three of us play together almost every evening - a great way to get some quality father-daughter time. I get out some running at least a couple of times a week, with the encouragement and camaraderie of Debbie and some of my CCSF colleagues (the Beaker Buddies!), with the high point of my running career being completing the 10K Pride Run in 2011 (in under an hour!...Well, okay, in 59 minutes and 58 seconds, but it's still under an hour...) I indulge in an occasional round of golf with my friends (my specialties are the three-wood into the trees, the five-iron into the pond, the nine-iron into the sand trap, and the lipped-out two-foot putt), an occasional two-on-two basketball game with my wife and daughters (they take it easy on poor ol' Dad), and frequent games of "pillowfight: let's pummel Dad" with said daughters.