Welcome to my homepage!
I earned my law degree in the summer of 1977, moved to Oregon and passed the Oregon State Bar Exam in 1978. I practiced law in a wide variety of settings for 20 years, including management positions: managing lawyers is hard to do effectively, because they are pretty much all smart, have huge egos, and are trained to argue. But I was successful at it and enjoyed it, so I entered the Portland State University MBA program in 1999, graduating into the dot-com crisis in 2001. There were no jobs to be had at that time, so when I was offered the opportunity to go to the Russian Far East as a volunteer business instructor, I jumped at the chance. It was an extremely interesting experience, learning to teach students whose grasp of English was marginal. I learned effective ways to let them know what subject we were on and when we were shifting to other topics; learning to use the blackboard was critical — and interesting, too, since I could see right through the blackboard in one classroom and could see the wall behind it!
Russia was an interesting place at the time. While western Russia was already a decade or more into the shift from communism to capitalism, eastern Russia was only beginning to scratch the surface of post-communism. I enjoyed the experience so much that I found a position teaching business and law courses in Moscow (in English). About half the student body was Russian, some of whom had attended schools in the US and Europe; the rest were the children of diplomats and foreign businesspeople. I taught full-time for a year, then decided to pursue a Ph.D. so that I could spend the rest of my life teaching overseas. I enrolled in the PSU Systems Science Ph.D program while teaching business courses as a Graduate Assistant at PSU and as a part-time faculty member at PCC, and while teaching MBA students in Moscow over the summers. I completed my coursework and was working on my dissertation when my wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer; as my wife and family needed me far more than I needed my Ph.D., I dropped out of the Ph.D program to care for my family.
I’ve been teaching business law courses at PCC since 2005. I have taught the course at Clackamas Community College as well, and I’ve taught International Business Law at Linfield. I also have taught business strategy and business ethics courses at other colleges in the Portland area. But Business Law is my favorite.
Business Law is my favorite because it introduces students to fundamental concepts of American law. Teaching the course is like going back to law school for me! I get to explore legal concepts, with the help and feedback of my students, and to see them through different lenses. I am able to help students develop better critical thinking and analytical skills that will help them for the rest of their lives.
I look forward to working though our course with you!