Candidate Biography (submitted by campaign):

My family settled in Raleigh in 1981 when I was 6. I grew up an active youth group member at Greystone Baptist Church, and graduated from Sanderson High School in 1994. While at Sanderson, I was a successful athlete in Cross-country and Track & Field, receiving all-conference and MVP honors in 1992 and 1993. Also during my time at Sanderson, I attended American Legion Tar Heel Boys’ State at Wake Forest University, and co-founded the Political Awareness Society at my high school to spur student interest in state and national politics.

In 1998 I graduated Cum Laude from the University of Richmond with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration / Economics. During my senior year, I was awarded a paid summer internship through the Small Business Development Center, and finished the 1993 Richmond Marathon.

After college I went to work for Capital One as an analyst on their marketing performance improvement team. To stay active in the community I renovated an old house in the struggling Carytown South neighborhood, and was soon appointed to committee chairman of the Neighborhood Association. I leveraged my position on the committee to enhance relations with law enforcement and improve the distribution of city services to Carytown South.

In 2001 I met my wife, Allison who was finishing her Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University. After Allison received her Masters of BME in 2005, we moved to Winston-Salem where she went to work for Tengion as a regenerative medicine scientist, and I joined BB&T’s Corporate Finance group.

Now, I am finishing up my MBA at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business while continuing to work at BB&T, and Allison is leaving Tengion to attend law school on a full academic scholarship at the Wake Forest University School of Law.
 

Candidate Statement:

Through years of studying economics, religion, and history, I have found one core and consistent message regarding what is right: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  The Golden Rule. Every major religion has a version of it.  But despite the widespread acceptance of this message, mankind has always found a way to institutionalize breaking it.

In the U.S., governments combine to take nearly 1/3 of the fruits of the average American’s labor.  We have taxes on income, property, sales, imports, gas, capital gains, communications, starting a business, driving a car, …  The vast majority of the money collected by governments is given to someone else.  Government has come up with all kinds of justifications for doing this.  The government gives our money to people who are poor or old or dumb.  And, people who grow corn or turn corn into gasoline.  And, people who like to paint or draw or take photographs.  And, people who work in certain preferred industries like computers or internet searching or banking.

The government also gives money to people who buy a house – kind of.  If you get a mortgage, then you don’t have to pay as much taxes… so everyone else picks up some of the tab for you.  Nice! Maybe the Golden Rule’s not so great after all.  Except that if the other people have more expensive mortgages than you, then you’ll actually be picking up some of the tab for them.

So at this point, we’re all welfare recipients in some way.  Today, it’s as important that government values our work as it is that individuals [who would willingly pay] value our work.

I’m a Libertarian candidate for General Assembly because I want a government that protects the morality we all believe in.