I was born on Curacao, a Dutch territory that is part of the Netherlands Antilles, and was raised in the Netherlands. My parents barely survived the Holocaust and were liberated by Canadians and Americans. My dad was Jewish and survived because he was able to hide. His brother was not so lucky. Many other family members perished as well. Fortunately, my dad's parents also survived. One other tidbit that's kind of interesting is that my dad is mentioned in Anne Frank's diary. In 1942 when all the Jews were driven out of the public schools they were forced to go to a "special" school for Jews. My dad was in class with Anne. Early in her diary she describes her classmates and she wrote one line about my dad. It reads something like, "Herman, like Jopie, is dirty-minded." Of course, the funny part is that my dad was dirty-minded.

On my mother's side my grandmother was arrested and sent to a concentration camp for hiding a Jewish couple. She was betrayed by one of her nephews for money. My mother went into hiding and was assisted by the Dutch Resistance after her mother was arrested. Shortly before the end of the war my grandmother was released and allowed to come home, but she died a few years after the war due to all the abuses she had suffered while in the camp. The bottomline is that World War II not only greatly affected my parents' generation, but it imprinted their children and their children's children as well. And even today the effects reverberate throughout the world. Just think about what is going on in the Middle East. And I would never have immigrated to the United States had it not been for my mother's idea that the US truly is the shining city on the hill. Heck, had my parents not been liberated by yanks I wouldn't even have been born. They would have died of starvation before they would have even met each other. Talk about unintended consequences.

I immigrated to the US in 1979 from the Netherlands. We tried our hand at running a small hotel in Palm Springs, CA but didn't do very well. After three years we sold it at a loss and I was left to figure out how to go to college. I was dirt poor so enlisted in the Air Force at the lowest enlisted rank of E-1. I went to college at night and on the weekends and got my Bachelor's degree in three years. I became a US citizen and applied for the Air Force commissioning program. I was accepted and went to Officer Training School in 1987.

When I graduated as a 2nd lieutenant I flew AWACS for three years as a Weapons Director. I then moved over to leading software development for the weapons guidance portion of the E-3 (AWACS) onboard mainframe computer. Later I moved into communications and worked on global terrestrial networks as well as several classified satellite systems.

One of my last and most memorable assignments was as the personal aide and executive officer for Brigadier General Billy R. Cooper. Gen. Cooper reported directly to Gen. Zinni and was in charge of Force Protection and Counter-Terrorism in Central Command's Area of Responsibility (AOR) which comprises the entire Arabian peninsula as well as the Horn of Africa. As Gen. Cooper's personal aide I traveled with him wherever he went. Among some of the privileged things I was able to do were two mini safaris in Kenya. I got to visit Djibouti, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. I scuba dived off the coast of Bahrain. I also met several US ambassadors and attended the meetings when Gen. Cooper briefed them on the terrorist threat. Once a month I organized a regional counter-terrorism forum that was attended by all the flag officers in the AOR. All the three, two, and one-star generals as well as many other high ranking officers attended. I would record the notes of the meeting and disseminate them through classified channels. So, for example, I knew there was no connection between Al Qaeda and Sadam Hussein.

During the 1990's the Air Force was aggressively reducing its forces. As part of that draw-down they offered a 15-year retirement option to non-pilots. So in 1998 I retired and moved to Silicon Valley to participate in the modern Goldrush called the dot-com boom. I joined a small software startup as employee #38 and helped build the company to over 200 employees and around $30M in sales. But then the whole thing started to slide. Four layoffs later we were acquired by Itron and as part of that acquisition I was offered a very nice Director's position in Itron's Raleigh office.

I accepted but had to delay my move to the East Coast because my wife was sent to Kuwait and Iraq for 14 months. She's a veterinarian and a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army. Thus I became Mr. Mom to our 3-year old son. It was stressful at times, but turned out to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I took my son with me on all my business trips. Usually, I'd stop over in Colorado to drop him off with my in-laws and then I'd pick him back up on the way home. And, by the way, you get the best possible service when you fly with a 3-year old. I was lucky I could make those choices because of my income. The very unfair part for today's Guard and Reserve families is that they don't live on or near a military base. So they have absolutely no support in terms of being able to commiserate with other military families, nor do they have access to support services and things like a PX or Commissary. Guard and Reserve families pay a much higher price than do active duty folks because they completely lack a support structure. It's disgustingly unfair.

After my wife safely returned (thank G..d) we moved to Raleigh and have lived there ever since. Recently Forbes Magazine ranked Raleigh #2 as best place to live in the US and I can see why. It's a great place with many excellent things going for it. Among them is a fantastic public school system. I think it easily competes with other top ranked public school systems in the US. There are four outstanding universities close by (Duke, NCSU, NC State, and Wake Forest), as well as a multitude of good museums, parks, restaurants, etc. In other words, we really like it here.

Last year, in 2005, I was listening to Al Franken's most excellent radio show on my iPod. I can't listen during the day due to my busy work schedule but the Podcasts allow me to participate asynchronously. (the power of the Internet; I love it). I do this almost every night because I thoroughly enjoy Al's humor, his debunking of conservative stupidity, as well as his highly credentialed and very thoughtful guests. Late last year one of those guests was Bill Lofy, Paul Wellstone's biographer. At the time, Bill Lofy mentioned that the two Wellstone sons had started the Wellstone organization in their parents' and sister's memory in part to help spread the progressive message their dad so ably crafted and promulgated. Part of the organization is an outreach effort called Camp Wellstone, which is intended to help Progressives be better prepared when either running as candidates or helping candidates run. It has always been my feeling that Republicans win elections not because of qualifications or ability, but because they seem better at running politics like a business with a potent marketing machine. Progressives have traditionally been fragmented so it's an uneven match when you're facing highly organized and angry middle-aged white men. Camp Wellstone is part of the effort to counter some of that through training and organization.

Camp Wellstone is divided into three tracks. One is for folks who want to be candidates, and the other two are for people who help organize and/or run campaigns. Camp Wellstone is great because it puts you in a room with like-minded people and outstanding and highly motivated workshop leaders. Moreover, during the course you meet experienced politicians who are guest speakers and you learn a ton about what it takes to not only run but also WIN!. During Al's interview with Bill Lofy, Bill mentioned that the last Camp Wellstone in 2005 was going to be held in Raleigh and at a location literally down the road from my house.

The minute I heard that I turned off my iPod and immediately registered online for the "candidate track." It turned out to be a fantastic experience. During the workshops several of the course leaders as well as many of my fellow students told me they thought I would make a great candidate and that I should consider running for office. I had always been interested in doing more than vote but never really knew how to get started. I had contacted my local Democratic party to volunteer but I was never called back. Now that I'm a candidate I understand why. Most local organizations are woefully under-staffed and ill-equipped to seriously organize an ongoing effort to dislodge the "Republican machine."

As a matter of fact, if you're interested in becoming more involved you're better off contacting one of your local candidates or representatives and talk to one of their staffers or the candidate him- or herself. They will usually do a better job of reaching out and responding to your questions. I've found that members of Congress are fairly hard to reach, but local folks generally are a lot more approachable than even I realized. For example, a lady recently called me to ask me to show up at a "meet & greet." Well, when you're a local guy with limited means you jump at any opportunity to meet more voters. It's not only good politics but also a lot of fun. The woman was surprised how easily she was able to get a hold of me. I also offered to invite other local candidates who are running. In other words, by reaching me all of a sudden she was plugged into four other local candidates as well. I don't think she would have been able to accomplish anything like that if she had tried to get a hold of the county party. And all of this only took 10 minutes. So get out your phone book and call your local politicians. I'm discovering the system really works if you take the first step and not accept "No" for an answer.

Through the training and the contacts I made at Camp Wellstone I got in touch with my local county Democratic party. The chairman told me he was desperately looking for four Democrats who would be willing to run for the four contested seats on the Wake County Commission. There are seven seats and every two years they alternate three and four seats for elections. I was surprised to find that few good people are interested in running for office. My assumption had always been that it would be hard to "get in." But there's actually quite a shortage of smart, good people who want to go through the process. When I checked a little further I found out the incumbent Republican was not seeking re-election. The convergence of all these factors was too good to be true so I paid my $170 filing fee to run for one of the county commissioner's seats.

Now I'm a first-time candidate and so far it has been an incredibly rewarding and downright fun experience. Plus, many people become accessible to you that previously would not have given you the time of day. You call someone and tell them you're running for office and they'll at least listen to you. Of course, when you ask them for money you have to be prepared to be rejected. So you need some thick skin. But the process of meeting folks and talking to them about important issues is great. I have an anecdotal story about how this works. My consultant told me to get a separate cell phone because if I used my corporate cell phone it would be considered a corporate contribution which, of course, is illegal. So I called my wireless provider and asked to choose a number people can easily remember. The person said they no longer allow you to choose and that numbers are randomly assigned. I was very friendly and told him I was running for office, that I had hoped to get a number folks could easily remember, and that I was sorry the company had changed their policy. The minute he heard I was a candidate he immediately offered to help. So we spent the next 15 minutes looking through a bunch of available numbers. I couldn't get anything with a mnemonic for my name or campaign but I did wind up with a very easy number. The moral of the story is that you'll be surprised how many folks will offer to help when they hear you're running for office.

Whenever I meet folks I often hear that they think I work so hard. My perspective is slightly different. I usually tell folks that migrant farm workers picking strawberries in the blazing sun for $5 an hour work hard. Showing up at parties and functions, eating good food, drinking nice wine, and talking to smart people about issues you really care about is not work. I thoroughly enjoy that part of it. True, you do have to get in your car almost every night for some type of event. But I've discovered it energizes me. My wife recently told me she hasn't seen me so happy in years. I'm somewhat of a romantic idealist and the idea that I'm engaged in something that in some small way may make our world a better place does make me happy. It makes me feel like I'm plugged into something meaningful. As much as I like money, it just doesn't turn my crank that much when someone tells me we sold another widget. That just means a sales person made a good commission. And sure, it's important because it feeds my family. But the idea that I can be part of a group of people that might actually do something that positively affects other people is powerful and feels great. For me at least it's a a very good feeling.

Before I started this whole process I was a solidly middle-class guy making a pretty good salary. And don't forget this was only about four months ago. Now as a candidate I go to many fund raisers and "meet & greets" and have met many political insiders, business leaders, as well as several prominent politicians. So if you move to a new area and want to meet everybody all at once I recommend you run for office. You literally meet everybody who claims to be anybody. For several years I was moping around trying to figure out what I could do differently so that I would feel my life had more meaning. I'm 46 and after having been in my corporate career for a while I was kind of depressed about the idea that when I die I might not have done much to improve anyone's life other than my own and my immediate family's. By taking these first few steps I have dramatically altered my life and invented a whole new possibility. To be sure, there will be moments when all of this will feel stale or perhaps old. And I'm sure that when my notoriously conservative opponent begins slinging mud there may be times my feelings get hurt. But to be part of something you know is much bigger than yourself and that has the potential to truly and measurably do something "right" is simply fantastic. I highly recommend it.