Experience
Candidate
Governor, State of Utah
January 2024 - November 2024
Utah, United States
I am on the ballot as an Unaffiliated Candidate after collecting over 1000 signatures personally, talking to about 2000 people in order to get them.
Candidate
Utah County Commissioner Seat A
Mar 2022 - November 2022
Utah County, Utah, United States
I received over 9600 votes, about 5% of the total cast in the race without spending any money other than the fee to enter the race. I entered this race after having been a "guest" in the Utah County Jail on completely false charges, see below.
Inmate
Utah County Jail
December 8, 2020 - December 14, 2020
Utah County, Utah, United States
I was held in jail without bond for six days on completely false felony charges that were never filed by the County Attorney. It was clearly because certain Saratoga Springs police officers had their egos bruised when I pointed out their incompetence. I will soon be putting all those details on line for all to see and judge for themselves. Our system that allows this to happen to innocent people is completely corrupt. I had no criminal legal issues whatsoever in my life prior to this apparently satanic attack on me and my character. The specific details are so ridiculous, that they may go viral when posted.
Founder
Be We One · Full-time
Oct 2017 - Present
Be We One is an effort to unite the whole world. It is the message found at the heart of all sacred writings. We sell apparel that makes starting spiritual conversations easy. And, out of such conversations, comes better understanding of each other.
President
Benchmark- The Time Saving Dry Cleaner
2004 - Feb 2019 · 15 yrs 2 mos
DFW
Benchmark is a fairly unique business model in that we do home pick up and delivery from a warehouse type location near the center of the DFW Metroplex. We service about a 50 mile radius from this one location and do volume much higher than a typical dry cleaner while absorbing the very significant added expense of all that transportation.
This business was sold to the local franchisee of Tide Dry Cleaners on 3/1/19 and now operates as Tide Dry Cleaners.
President
Jenny's Pizza Empire
Oct 2017 - 2018 · 4 mos
Empire, CO
Owned and operated a casual pizza restaurant in a tourist town. Served great pizza, love fired, and served with love. Closed after my son left the business and it was not something I wanted to continue to do myself.
President
Peproni's
Jul 2015 - Jan 2016 · 7 mos
Arvada, CO
The second incarnation of Peproni's was opened in Arvada, CO. We chose an area with a highly diverse population, which should help solve the "everybody orders at the same time" problem we encountered when open in almost all white collar Parker, CO. Additionally we focused on doing scheduled deliveries, so we can make the uncooked pizzas up in advance and have drivers travel house-house-house rather than the typical store-house-store routine. After about 6 months, we closed the operating business as we found the cost of acquiring customers was significantly higher than the lifetime value of a customer.
President
Peproni's
2013 · Less than a year
Parker, CO
Peproni's, in this first incarnation, was a pizza store that delivered uncooked pizzas for cooking at home. After a short time we closed it as impractical because we were too busy for one hour a day and had no business the rest of the day. We plan to reopen it in a new location (it was located in a food truck) when we solve the riddle of how to spread out the business so it is manageable.
President
Trustworthy Media
2012 - 2013 · 1 yr
DFW
Trustworthy Media was a startup that never really got started. It was designed as a daily deal style service with a significant difference- all the deals were completely free to the consumer. While we made a few sales, we found that many local merchants had been recently burned by daily deal companies and were therefore reluctant to do business with us. We shut it down after several months of sales efforts with minimal financial loss.
Inventor
Trustednet and Pathword
2006 · Less than a year
Virtual
After coming up with these concepts, they were discovered on line by a handful of internet thought leaders, including Doc Searls, who was intrigued and suggested my attendance at the Internet Identity Workshop held in Mountain View, CA at the Computer History Museum. I attended two of these conferences and made presentations to a cumulative hundreds of people. While neither idea made any profit for me, the main idea of each, competing identity providers in the Trustednet and picture password (Pathword) have gradually been adopted on the internet. Picture passwords came out as a feature of Windows 8 that was initially heavily advertised and many web sites today give you the option to "sign in with Google" or "sign in with Facebook" or sign in with other. Whether I was any actual influence I don't know, many in the audience worked at the major tech companies. Feedback I did receive at the conferences was that "you are ten years ahead of everyone else"
President
Y Cleaners
2003 - 2004 · 1 yr
Plano, TX
Started a one van dry cleaning delivery operation when my son's disease was in remission. After acquiring about 100 regular customers, concluded that the cost of acquiring customers was too high to pay off unless we had control of quality, which we did not since we outsourced the cleaning. This experience led to the acquisition of Benchmark- see above.
Director of Administration and Athletics
Coram Deo Academy
2000 - 2002 · 2 yrs
Flower Mound, TX
I oversaw pretty much all of the non-academic operations of this innovative classical Christian school. Enrollment went from about 120 to 550 with a commensurate increase in faculty and staff during my tenure here and we moved into a much larger building. I did a lot of the marketing, including being instrumental in renaming the school with a new logo and editing the school catalog. Installed the school's first school management software, adapting a very inexpensive package to the specific needs of the school. Left the school after my eldest child was diagnosed with a life ending disease.
Administrator
Legacy Christian
1999 - 2000 · 2 yrs
Frisco, TX
Oversaw most of the non-academic operations of this fast growing start up school. Installed an advertiser supported free software package that allowed parents and teachers to be in constant communication- for the time this was cutting edge. Taught some math classes, an economics class, and specials classes- eventually teaching at least a little to every grade K-12.
Mathematician
Project SEED
1998 - 1999 · 1 yr
Inner city Dallas schools
Taught a special math program to inner city children for one school year. If you've never seen a Project SEED class, go to their web site and watch! Left due to continued funding uncertainty. This was a national non-profit where I also learned a lot about how non-profits operate.
President
Franserv
1991 - 1996 · 5 yrs
Richardson, TX
Operated a franchising company for owners of "Paproni's Pizza" stores in Plano and Carrollton, TX, Assisted franchisees in all aspects of operations. Stores performed well until entrance in marketplace of a very well funded new competitor- Papa John's, which sparked a media and price war in the pizza delivery business that my franchisees were unable to weather.
Business Consultant
TJT, Inc.
1982 - 1994 · 12 yrs
Nationwide
Helped numerous friends and former employees establish or grow their own pizza delivery businesses. Some of it unpaid, most of it paid. Assisted in at least a small way two chains that went on to be quite large- Blackjack Pizza, mainly in CO (unpaid but we bought/sold stores together) and Pizza Time, mainly in WA (paid). Helped former employees with a variety of stores all across the US.
President
Futurefab
1990 - 1991 · 1 yr
Plano, TX
Purchased and operated an 8 employee custom plastic and electronics fabrication company whose principal customers were large semiconductor facilities such as TI and Honeywell. Gained experience making high ticket sales to major corporations but decided after a year that this business was not for me. Sold it profitable to an individual who still runs it as of 2022.
Broker Associate
VR Business Sales/Mergers & Acquisitions
1990 · Less than a year
Richardson, TX
Worked a six month stint here upon arriving in the DFW area. Closed two transactions but the second one was for myself as I decided to exit after being unsure of the prospects here. The Richardson franchise closed a few months after I left.
President
Paproni's Pizza
1986 - 1990 · 4 yrs
San Angelo and Midland, TX
Opened and operated two large family pizza places with indoor playgrounds, video games, and low prices pizza. Both were immensely successful early on and returned my large investment in months. Then McDonald's rolled out indoor playground in all their stores and this really hurt us. Closed both stores when their leases were up with no financial loss. A new chain called Cici's moved right into one of the locations and did a lot more than we did by doing a lot less- just the cheap pizza.
President
Pizza Pro's
1981 - 1988 · 7 yrs
El Paso, TX and Denver and Longmont and Colorado Springs, CO and Killeen, TX
This was my big success. Grew from one pizza store to 12 that sold well over a million pizzas a year with hundreds of employees. Managers were empowered to run each store as their own independent business and they shared a good portion of the profits. Sold stores off as Paproni's concept appeared more profitable and we ran into more legal issues as we got larger.
Store Manager
Domino's
1978 - 1981 · 3 yrs
Denver, CO and Boulder, CO and Palo Alto, CA and El Paso, TX
Started as a driver and was promoted to store manager at a franchise location in Denver. Returned to college in fall and worked at a corporate location where I was promoted to store manager at the end of my last school year at CU Boulder. Sent on special assignment to run a troubled store in Palo Alto, CA then was promoted to very high volume/profit store in El Paso, TX. Left Domino's to start own pizza company after being rebuffed at efforts to franchise, probably because I was so young.
Crew Chief
Mizel Development (MDC)
1977 · Less than a year
Denver, CO
I'm including this because it was a pretty good accomplishment. I had been hired sight unseen as a surveyor on a large apartment construction site but when I got there they had hired one too many people for those two slots. So they asked if I could lead the foundations crew and I said yes. So at 17 years old (perhaps looking older since I'm a big guy) I was supervising 20 older men in backfilling, smoothing, and prepping a new apartment foundation every single day. It was an early opportunity for me to be the boss and I've found myself in that position many times (but not always) since. That company, MDC, is now one of the largest builders in the nation.