Occupation: I am the special issues editor of Fine Home Buildings Magazine for Taunton Press. That means I’m the one who organizes our special issues on design. I do the Kitchens & Baths issues and the Homes issues featuring the ten most significant houses for what we think our readers are interested in. This year we concentrated on remodels and energy efficient houses.

Family: Jeanetta is my wife. We’ve been married for 35 years and have two boys. Casey is 30 and Farley is 21.

Pets: We have one, final black cat, who is 16 years old. My wife named her Ursa Minor because she looked like a little bear, but she calls her “Little.” I call her “Tick Bus.”

How long have you lived in Newtown? We got here in 1991, from Berkeley, California. We moved because I got this job at Taunton Press. It’s sort of a dream job for me. I get to dabble in a lot of the different talents I have: photography, illustration, writing, and building. I was a builder before I came to the magazine.

What do you like to do in your free time? I still like to build. I’ve been pounding on our house since we bought it. We’ve added on a garage, a music studio over the garage, and now we’re putting on an addition to the main house. And I play guitar. We go out to hear live music a lot.

Do you have a favorite musician? Probably Mark Knopfler. He’s the guy from the Dire Straits series. He’s a guitarist and writes really intelligent lyrics, great rhythm licks, and can really keep a groove going.

What are you presently reading? The most important book I’m reading right now is The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I think Michael Pollan is a very significant guy.

Do you have a favorite travel destination? I have two favorites. We go to Sea Ranch, north of San Francisco, a development that started in the 1960s, where we have a house. But we rent it out, so we actually end up staying in one across the street. We are also very interested in Costa Rica. We’ve been there once and I would like to go back. The water there is beautiful.

What is the best thing about Newtown? The people here are really genuine and friendly. I also like the sense of history the place has. There are antique houses around here that are charming, and the stone walls here are great. I know it’s cliché, but I do like seeing the seasons change.

Do you have a person whom you admire? I admire Elizabeth Kolbert. She is a writer for The New Yorker and writes on environmental issues. She wrote about climate change well before Al Gore did. I think she’s one of those unsung heroes.

Do you have a personal philosophy? I try to live as lightly on the earth as I can. I try to recycle what I can, and when I build, I try to build with things that have been tossed out. I try not to waste stuff.

What is the craziest thing you have ever done? Deciding I wanted to be a commercial fisherman in Alaska, going there with another guy, and buying a boat without knowing anything about it. I was 27 years old. We fished for halibut. That lasted from April to November. We learned that you need an anchor; and that some of the halibut were so big we had to shoot them, and that there were Kodiak bears living on the island where we camped. It’s amazing we survived. I went back to California for the winter, met Jeanetta, and that pulled the plug on my fishing career.