| What is your most memorable childhood experience? | When I was in eighth grade our school organized a quiz bowl tournament with assigned teams. The tournament was going to be played on the new computers that our school had received, pitting the teams against a clock, and not directly against each other. No one on my team really cared to man the computer, so I was randomly chosen to sit at the keyboard with the rest of my team expected to shout out answers to the questions that popped up on the screen. When we began I found myself answering most of the questions before my teammates finished reading the questions. My quick responses to questions, which ran the gamut from math to geography to history, allowed us to advance quickly through the tournament which we ultimately won. The victory provided the rest of the team with momentary bragging rights, but it also won me favor in the eyes of the teachers. From that point on I found myself held to a higher standard academically, and provided with additional learning opportunities through which I could grow. From that point on I decided to take advantage of unique opportunities as they presented themselves, which in high school allowed me to excel both academically and athletically, and throughout my life in both personal and professional ways. |
| What immediate family member do you closely identify with and why? | My father. My father was brought up in unfortunate circumstances in a pretty rough neighborhood. Throughout his childhood he was a rebel and refused to conform to the arbitrary demands of his community. That refusal to conform did not serve him well at the time. Despite missed opportunities and an inability to ever apply his talents in a manner which would make him financially secure, he never used his station in life as an excuse to try to take advantage of others. He always put his integrity first whenever he was came to an ethically ambiguous point in his life. And he did his best to impart those values on to me. In my life, I too have been a nonconformist. Fortunately for me, I was not hindered by it, but instead benefited from it. This is because my father raised me to believe in myself and not to place too much value on the opinions of others, so long as my actions never compromised my integrity. Because of my father I place tremendous value on the virtues of living a life free from the constraints of arbitrary social expectations and of living a life of integrity. I've had the pleasure of meeting fathers who have created billions of dollars of wealth through their ventures, who have had considerable political influence on nations, and who have wielded tremendous influence in society. I wouldn't trade the free spirit or integrity of my father for any of the accomplishments of the others. |
| What character traits do you admire in an individual? | Integrity. Each individual has varying strengths and weaknesses. Based on the needs and wants of society those strengths and weaknesses (coupled with initiative, ambition and luck) allow some members of society to have more power, influence and prosperity than others. Given my life experiences, I have come to meet, work with and befriend people across all strata of society, and I have found that integrity is not confined to any subset of society (though it is largely absent in some professions). While I respect people who are able to capitalize on the resources they have available to them to create tremendous value in this world, I respect no one more than the person who does so without compromising his or her integrity. |
| What is the funniest thing ever to happen to you? | Upon returning from a six month peacekeeping mission in Kosovo a group of us decided to take a trip from our base in the western part of Germany to Prague for the weekend. After being tied to a weapon and stuck on a base for a half year, the prospect of visiting a new country with our newfound freedom was thrilling. The weekend was going fine until we tried to leave Prague on a Sunday morning. I'm not sure if it was the exhaustion from the weekend, the Czech road signs or my rusty driving but we couldn't seem to find our way out as we kept circling back into the same general area of the old city. Eventually we decided to pull up to a police officer who was standing on the side of the road to ask for directions. It quickly became apparent that he was inebriated, and he didn't speak English. He started yelling at us and demanded to see my passport. When I presented it to him he then demanded that we pay him 10,000 Crowns. The friend who was sitting next to me realizedthe ridiculous nature of being shaken down by a drunken cop. He grabbed the passport back from the officer and suggested that I continue driving, but the cop then grabbed his pistol. At that point we decided that instead of tempting fate that we would just pool our money to pay the bribe so that we could get back home to Germany.The humor in having spent six months in a war zone without ever having a gun drawn on us, but then having a gun drawn on us in our first weekend of freedom by a drunken cop in Prague was not lost on us. |
| If time and money were not an issue, where would you travel and why? | I am fanatical about traveling. I have been to about three dozen countries, and I plan to always keep my country count higher than my age. What I love about traveling is the opportunity to observe and experience the wonderful (and sometimes disturbing) diversity in our world and the human race. I have fallen in love with the history and cuisines of Italy and India. I have been awed by the landscapes of Morocco, Thailand and Ireland. I have been shocked by the political environments of Russia, Singapore and Kuwait. And I have been amazed by the resiliency of those living in Kosovo, Iraq, and the slums of the Philippines. If money and time were not an issue, I would spend a year traveling the world, mostly by backpack where I could experience the various cultures at their most basic levels. I would focus on places I have not yet been such as China, Australia, and throughout much of Africa and South America. I would also spend considerable time back in India and Italy, two countries I've already visited a total of seven times combined. |
| When and if you ever have children, what would you like to pass on to them? | More important than material goods, financial security or even education, I would like to pass on to my children a moral-philosophical framework which rejects the use of coercion or force to manipulate, control or hurt other people - no matter the perceived benefits of doing so. |
