I am a native son of Idaho and attended primary and secondary schools in Madison County, graduating from Madison High School in 1972.  As I was growing up, summers were spent on the family hay ranch in Camas Meadows, Clark County, where my Dad raised hay, grain, and cattle.  I attended the initial two years of college in Idaho and during the latter years of college I returned during the summer to work with my Dad on the ranch as I had done from my youth.  After graduating from college and spending a couple of years away from the state, I made a decision to structure my career so that I could continue to return to Idaho in the summers to help my Dad with the work on the ranch and I did so until my Dad died.  After my Dad died I found it was impractical for me to take away time from my engineering profession, which supported my growing family, to do all of the work required to keep up the ranching operation.  So, for the past eighteen years I have lived and worked as a civil engineer in the Las Vegas Valley in southern Nevada.  However, the majority of our family vacations have been spent in Idaho on the ranch building and repairing head gates and ditches, fixing fence, and doing other things to help maintain my parents holdings in Camas Meadows.

I married my wonderful wife (Paula Robinson from Newdale, Idaho) in 1975 and we have been blessed with eleven children (my three youngest are still at home) and sixteen grandchildren.  My being a husband, parent, grandparent, son, and brother, as well as my work in agriculture, teaching, and engineering, have given me valuable insights into the affairs of society and industry that shape us as individuals, as families, and as a people.

We live in a land of freedom and opportunity that is unparalleled in the history of mankind, but we face many challenges to our freedoms and our way of life.  I firmly believe that we have a responsibility to uphold and pass on those ideals that have made this land great. It is for that reason that I have decided to give voice to the issues that I believe are crucial to us as a people and to make a solemn commitment to serve the people of the state of Idaho and of the nation if elected.