I was born in St. Francis Hospital (Upper Lawrenceville, City of Pittsburgh ) and grew up mostly in Bloomfield and the South Side. If you really need more you can read the profile written by my friend the late Clarke Thomas some years ago (Optimistic Contrarian, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 2, 2004.) Don’t we all miss Clarke?

I have worked for places as diverse as the National Security Agency, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Oliver Wyman and Company, a financial services consulting company in New York City and then for Lehman Brothers, long long before its vast bankruptcy. I even have to admit I worked on Lehman’s Derivative Products trading floor, so I saw most of the seeds for what later became the global financial crisis decades later.

For two decades I have been at the program in Urban and Regional Analysis at the University Center for Social and Urban Research(UCSUR) at the University of Pittsburgh where my work has focused on economic change in Pittsburgh and economic research including economic impact analysis, regional demographic trends, economic development and all things related. In the spring I teach a course in economic development at the CMU’s Heinz College.

I have also completed my 37th year in the Navy Reserve, first enlisting in 1985 and eventually promoted to Chief Petty Officer in 2001. Commissioned an officer in 2003; now heading, eventually, toward retirement.