I spent five years in Danbury first working for 2 years as a mental health worker at a private psychiatric hospital in Westchester County NY and then building an illustrious career as a retail manager and coming into early-adulthood as a gay man.  While in CT I also co-facilitated the Danbury Area Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Youth Group (I actually helped add the "Bi"--Trans was not on our radar then--I'm sure it has been since I left).  While leading the youth group, I helped start a community education program where we went into local school classrooms doing community education about GLB issues and coming out.  I also helped plan Danbury's first Gay Pride, a Pot-Luck Barbeque at the Knights of Columbus Hall!

 

In 1993, I had had enough of being a big gay fish in a small town, and gave into my best-friend Phoebe's campaigning for me to move to San Francisco, I packed everything into a U-Haul and drove across the country to the amazing City of San Francisco.

 

After a few more grueling years as a retail manager in SF, I decided that the only way to get out of retail was to go back to school.  So, in 1997 I returned to SF State to finish my BS in Health Science.  After graduating in 2000, I went directly to UC Berkeley to obtain my Master's in Public Health, and after completing my MPH, I continued on into the Doctoral Program (DrPH) in Public Health at UCB.  I am currently "working on my dissertation" in order to finish up my doctorate. 

 

While working my way through school, I have worked multiple jobs. After being downsized from UCSF doing AIDS policy research, I ended up back working retail.  This time though, it's a different kind of retail--while I attempt to finsih up my degree, I'm working as the Buyer for Mr. S Leather (www.mr-s-leather.com), the largest BDSM/Fetish/Leather shop in the world.  I also help out as the Editorial Assistant for the Journal of Homosexuality, the longest published academic journal focusing on LGBT research. 

 

In terms of volunteer stuff, I am a founding community advisory board member for Magnet, an amazing gay men's community health center that we opened in July 2003.  Magnet is pretty much the embodiment of why I got into Public Health and they offer individual health services and community events in an amazing space (click on the picture of the Magnet sign on the right to find out more).  Believe it or not it is the first ever health center intended specifically for gay men in San Francisco.  I spend a lot of time volunteering for events, helping with fundraising and helping write grant applications for the organization.  Professionally, for the past five years, I have also served as part of the Executive Committee for the LGBT Caucus of the American Public Health Association.

 

In August of 2004,  I ran for, and won the Mr. Hayes Valley Leather title.  Mr. HV is one of the "bar titles" that feed into the Mr. San Francisco contest.  The title is sponsored by Marlena's bar which is a wonderful little neighborhood bar in the neighborhood called Hayes Valley--it's just to the west of Civic Center and City Hall.  Marlena's is also the home bar for San Francisco's Imperial Court, and Gary (Marlena) is incredibly comitted to community.  He is an amazing sponsor, is incredibly supportive of the men who have held the Mr. HV title and even sponsors them to go to IML regardless of how they place in the SF contest.  I am very proud to have represented Marlena's as one of the Mr. Hayes Valley Leather Men and am especially proud to represent a bar that truly embraces the notion of a diverse community here in San Francisco.