Occupation: I’m a home improvement contractor. My company is MJD’Avola, LLC and I work out of Newtown. I have a shop on our property for woodworking and tool storage, and I sometimes make custom cabinets and woodwork there.

Family: Elizabeth, my wife, and our daughter Morgan, who is 15 years old, and Emma, who is 10 years old.

Pets: We have Dutch, our chocolate lab. He’s 5 years old. We adopted two feral cats from the Animal Center and they live in my shop, taking care of unwanted visitors. They’ve become a lot friendlier. One is named Stella, and the other is Vera.

How long have you lived in Newtown? We’ve lived here 13 years. We moved from Danbury, where we had our first house.

What do you like to do in your free time? I like to golf, and do projects around the house. I volunteer at Newtown Congregational Church and I’m on the board of trustees there now. I’ve been working with other volunteers on developing the new Cornerstone Thrift Shop beneath the church. I like to go to the movies with the girls, and I like just spending time with the kids. There’s really not a lot of “free” time.

Do you have a favorite book? This summer I’ve read 1776 by David McCullough and Ticonderoga. I’m in the middle of reading another book by McCullough, John Adams. It’s amazing to me what the Founding Fathers went through to become independent. Politics today can’t hold a candle to those guys.

Do you have a favorite travel destination? Elizabeth’s family has had a cabin on Lake Ontario since about the 1930s on Three Mile Bay, just a stone’s throw from Canada. It’s beautiful up there. We go up there every summer for at least a week. It’s just really nice. The kids can go fishing and swimming. It’s a great destination.

What is the best thing about Newtown? For me, it’s that Newtown still has a lot of history. There’s still a lot of farmland. If you take some of the back roads, you see there is so much land. It’s really beautiful. It’s a unique town, not a run of the mill place. I love the Labor Day Parade, the flagpole in the center of the road, and the people, of course.

Do you have a hero? There are a few. The Founding Fathers of our country, like Jefferson and Adams, are sort of my heroes. They were very interesting people. What they did for the country was tremendous and they personally put everything they had on the line. Not everybody realizes that what they did at the time was very dangerous, for themselves and their families, and that had they been found out, they could have been put to death for treason.

Do you have a personal philosophy? Be true to yourself. Don’t try to be someone you’re not. Cherish your family and friends. Things happen quickly, so enjoy them while you can.

What is the most important lesson you have learned? The one that sticks in my head like it was yesterday, is to never tell a lie. Always do the right thing, then everything will be fine.