Why I’m running

I’m a fifth generation Akronite, the son of an Akron Public Schools teacher and the grandson of a rubber worker. Having grown up in Northwest Akron and graduated from Firestone High School, I’ve called Middlebury home for the past seven years.

Not long ago, I achieved my lifelong career goal of becoming an ER doctor. Working in healthcare has given me a window into the daily challenges faced by people in every corner of our city. I have seen how the impacts of poverty, housing insecurity, and gun violence can change lives and challenge families.

I believe in the unique power of city government to solve problems, by identifying and scaling local solutions to local challenges. Politics today seldom inspires optimism, but I think that the bridge across our collective divides will be built in city halls across this country.

I have always proclaimed (sometimes with a laugh in response) that Akron is the greatest city in the world. I wouldn’t have been able to succeed in my life, were it not for the grouping of family, friends, teachers, and neighbors who decided that I was worth believing in and investing in during my younger years. For that reason, I believe that I owe a debt of service to this community.

I’ve settled on the slogan “For every neighborhood” to define this campaign. It is the unique synergy of our city’s 24 neighborhoods — and the people who make them what they are — that constitute what makes Akron beautiful and great. Over the next eight months of this campaign, I’ve set a goal to knock on 10,000 doors, across all 24 of Akron’s neighborhoods. While I hope to earn votes by doing so, I also hope to meet many more of my neighbors, who have always shown me new reasons to be passionate about believing in Akron.