Where I come from...

I am a  62 year old retired civil servant / active businessman / furniture-maker, resident of West Virginia since 1997, and I will remain a resident for the rest of my natural life. I simply love this state. I have been happily married to a West Virginia native named Mary for the past seven years (those of you who knew her before that might recognize her by Mary Harter or before that by her maiden name of Mary Harsh). I firmly believe she was sent to me in 2002 by a loving God to complete my existence. Between the two of us, we have five children between 30 and 42 years old and eight grandchildren between 3 and 19 years old. We have been members of Fellowship Baptist Church, Vienna, WV since 2005.

Before coming to West Virginia I served for over 20 years in management positions with private sector employers and lastly within the Orange County (FL) government, initially as Public Services Manager (Security, Safety, and Transportation) for the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando; and later as Assistant Deputy Clerk to the Board of County Commissioners (BCC) where I was responsible for the records of the BCC and developing IT systems to allow electronic searching of those records.

I served in The United States Air Force from 1965 to 1969, including a year in Thailand and Viet Nam.

I earned an Associate’s degree in Administration of Justice through the GI Bill in 1978, and a Bachelor’s degree from Barry University (Miami Shores, FL) in 1994. I am about 7 credits shy of completing a Master of Arts in Organizational Management through the University of Phoenix.

Tomark LLC is our family business started initially as a sole proprietorship shortly after my arrival in WV, converting to a WV LLC in 2005. It continues to operate successfully producing decorated apparel (dba Knot Just Stitches) as well as custom wood millwork, furniture, and window treatments (dba Starkwood Designs). We sell to both the local and national markets.

My life priorities are God, Family, and, right now, a campaign to offer the people of District 1 representation in Washington, DC, on which they can depend to keep government off their backs while seeing to the responsibilities bestowed on the Federal Government by our Constitution.

An oath is a promise to God.  It is not something I take lightly.