I began my passion for radio as an SWL back in 1958. I got my ham license while at Scottsdale High School back in the early ‘60s (WN7CNP – WA7CNP), and thoroughly enjoyed the tail end of the AM era. I also had the honor of being one of the guys who ran phone patches from Barry Goldwater’s place (AFA7UGA/K7UGA) when school was out for the summer. After high school I went to work at Motorola Semiconductors working alongside such notables as Roy Hejhall, K7QWR, and Helge Granberg, OH2ZE/K7ES, in the solid state power transistor product development group, and started my studies in engineering at ASU. I did Vietnam from ’68-’72 in the Navy as an electronics technician, and returned to Motorola and ASU, funded under the GI Bill. Here's a picture of me back in 1966 at the Maricopa County EOC in Phoenix.

I got married in ’74, and moved to San Diego in late ’76 (career advancement). I finished my bachelor’s in ’78; followed that up with an MBA in ’79, and a Ph.D. in ’87. I did the professional ladder climbing routine (not all it’s cracked up to be), eventually landing in the Seattle area as the director of engineering for US West Cellular. In ’93 I pulled the ejection seat lever on all of that, and in ’94 I entered Fuller Theological Seminary, got my Masters in Biblical Studies and Theology in ’98, and was ordained in ’99. I did some hamming in Israel (4X/N6NR, 4Z85TA), China (BY1QH), and Indonesia (YB0ARN) while on pastoral internships. I now serve as a chaplain for the local fire department. On May 1, 2009 I came back out of retirement to replenish our depleted retirement. I now work as a project engineer for ADCOMM Engineering, designing and building public safety communications systems in Washington and Oregon.

I still serve as a Technical Advisor for ARRL Headquarters since way back in 1976 evaluating manuscripts submitted to QST, QEX and NCJ, and spent several years on the editorial staff of 73 Magazine until it ceased publication (not my fault). My XYL Connie, W7CDO (pictured above), and I live on a 13-acre Honeycrisp apple orchard in Tieton, WA, 15 miles NW of Yakima, after having survived 20 years in the People's Democratic Socialist Republic of King County, WA. Our son Lamar works at (you guessed it) Microsoft, and he and his wife have given us two gorgeous granddaughters and two rambunctious grandsons.

I still enjoy amateur radio as much as I did way back when, and recently retired as a tenor with the Seattle Opera (I’ll tell you on the air sometime about my years signing with a bluegrass/gospel group known as the Swept Wing Chicken Thieves [Wayne Green even sang with us once]).