Bilingual in English and French, I’m originally a jazz saxophonist by trade and I turned 47 in 2020. I’ve been a devoted CBC Radio One listener since childhood, although since 2004 I’ve taken most of my audio journalism in podcast form. I was born in Regina, grew up mostly in Calgary, and studied music at McGill University from 1992-1996. After finishing at McGill and getting married to another Calgarian, we moved to Halifax so that she could train in medicine at Dalhousie University. We quickly fell in love with the East Coast and we’ve stayed in Nova Scotia ever since. We now live in Dartmouth, and our family is rounded out by three great kids.
I’ve been a stay-at-home dad since around 2005, but the bulk of my professional experience has been in music performance, marketing research, and IT project management. Since university, I’ve worked in various technical, HR, marketing and sales positions with marketing research, software and technology companies in Halifax and in Montreal. I’m a car nut, I listen to a LOT of music and podcasts, I do most of the family’s cooking, and I have a borderline obsessive relationship with coffee.
I expand more about my writing here, but presently my most treasured interests and writing topics are related to recovery from eating disorders, addiction and trauma, in addition to governance topics related to public health, education and health care (admittedly through an equity-based, trauma-informed lens). I also have a pet interest (as everyone should!) in technological innovations and adaptations related to local power generation, the reduction of CO2 emissions, and global climate change.
Until October 2012, I served as Vice-President of Programming on the Board of Directors for JazzEast Rising Association, producers of the TD Halifax Jazz Festival each July. I was Chair of the Shannon Park School Advisory Council from 2012-2014, and I was President of the Shearwater Bluefins Swim Club for the 2018-2019 season. I’ve also been online since the late 1980s (not a typo) and started my first personal blog on Livejournal in December, 2000. This is my Twitter feed (as of March 2020, you can also follow me for COVID-19 science/policy updates and/or subscribe to my list of COVID-19 experts), this is my Instagram feed, and this is my (usually unserious) Facebook feed.