About Brad

I was born in Brooklyn, NY and raised on Long Island. My first paid reporting work came in 1978 as a correspondent with a weekly local news column with the East Hampton Star while still in high school. I also did local cable news reporting and had a daily radio news column. While in high school I earned my varsity letter in track, edited the school paper, and organized protests against plans to build a nuclear power plant in the middle of Long Island. My concern wasn't anti nuclear power so much as if there were an accident, almost 2 million people would be stranded on eastern Long Island with no way away from exposure to radiation. I also published a monthly newspaper edited by students when the school budget didn't pass and all electives, including the school paper were eliminated. I learned how a community can come together and support students as local businesses supported our little student run newspaper. While working in my family's real estate office, I designed and implemented a real-time database for our listings - a first on eastern Long Island. Most important of all, while in high school I met the love of my life, my fiance Alicia. As a National Merit Scholar SemiFinalist I earned a full scholarship at Southampton College, where I majored in Philosophy and History. After college I moved to the Boston area and designed and sold business computer systems. I took a year off and worked for the Massachusetts Coalition For The Homeless. I then went to work for Yankee Publishing, where I developed a groundbreaking desktop publishing process for their New England Business magazine that saved the publication hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in production cost savings. I then went to work for a division of the community newspaper group owned by Dow Jones where I expanded the work I had done at Yankee and developed the first PC-based pagination system. Going in I knew that 20 to 30 jobs would be eliminated, and I negotiated an arrangement where any displaced employee would be offered retraining in other areas at the newspaper. They honored that and over 30 people were retrained and moved into new roles. The pagination system, and my related patent, was important, but I take the most pride in combining technological advancement with taking care of the employees whose dedication created the opportunity for new advances. I also wrote my first book, Nextwaving, which explained how other publishers could do the same thing. I also wrote a globally syndicated column about technology for 10 years and another about the Internet. Later in my career I oversaw 119 community news websites for a national newspaper chain based in Louisville, KY, ran a local publishing business based in Princeton, NJ and took them from losing more than $6 million a year to posting consistent multimillion dollar profits. Alicia and I moved to Bethel about 8 years ago because we fell in love with the charming downtown, the vibrant businesses and most of all the wonderful people who live and work here. I moved my Community Gazette newspapers here and have the privilege and responsibility of publishing community newspapers throughout western Connecticut.  After leaving the Bethel Chamber of Commerce, I founded the 1,000 plus member Bethel Business Network, dedicated to promoting local businesses and supporting the people who own and run them.   I'm running to represent the 2nd District in Hartford because I believe we need representatives who make sure that all citizens' voices are heard, who understands the challenges local businesses face, who has worked successfully to help ensure prosperity for business and employees and the larger community and who will fight fiercely to move Connecticut away from 1 party rule that is so corrosive to our Democracy. I hope I can count on your support this November.