Members in the News

GROWING up, my sister and I always watched the evening news with our parents. Walter Cronkite would say something and my father would respond. This was always the beginning of a long period of debate around the dinner table. We would all have to take positions and defend them. And this was during the Vietnam War, so it was clear that we were not allowed to be passive.

We were taught that what happened elsewhere always affected you at home. I still feel that way. This is something my father learned by being from the island of Crete and coming of age there during World War II. He belonged to the underground and distributed anti-Nazi propaganda. There was a saying there: better a moment of freedom than a hundred years of slavery and occupation. I know that because my father repeats it so often.

After the war, my parents obtained refugee status and moved to San Francisco in 1955. My parents spoke no English when they came to the States, and I had little exposure to the language since the Mission District, where we lived, was predominantly Spanish-speaking. So when I went to the public kindergarten down the street, the teacher sent me home almost immediately because I couldn't understand anything. I went back the next day.

My dad had to work three jobs. He was a mechanic at Greyhound, a bartender and a taxi driver at night. Later, he drove a dump truck. When he didn't work the night shift, my mom did, canceling checks at Bank of America. I often went with my dad on his jobs. We were a very tightknit family.

He ended up getting more trucks, so I learned to drive 10-wheelers and doubles. I still carry my Class A driver's license.

I got into college on the Educational Opportunity Program at the University of California, Berkeley. I failed the basic English essay test. So I was put into what was officially called Subject A, but everybody called it bonehead English.

I spent a lot of time in Eastern Europe and Germany as a foreign correspondent. My father was able to observe the destruction of the Third Reich, and I had a front-row seat at the demise of the Soviet empire. I came home after suffering an injury in Moscow.

In my office, I keep a piece of the Berlin Wall that I chipped off myself. I keep a sliver of the last Soviet flag to fly over the Kremlin. And I keep the Mercedes hood ornament from the bulletproof Mercedes that belonged to Mohammad Najibullah, who was overthrown as the president of Afghanistan when I was there in the early 90's.

I picked up a lot of my business experience writing a book about Apple Computer and spending a lot of time with John Sculley, then its chief executive. Later, I got to work closely with Rick Belluzzo at Silicon Graphics. He taught me how to leverage your strengths and resources. I call it my lay M.B.A.

When you're as limited in resources as The Washington Monthly is, you really have to figure out how to make the most out of the little you have. Our entire budget is probably equivalent to the coffee budget for the human resources department of most large corporations.

I met my wife, Eleni, in San Francisco at the end of 1999, and eight weeks later we were married in Constantinople. We moved to Sacramento, where I also work with my wife's land development company. I spend about a week in Washington each month.

When I was younger, working in construction, I had nasty foremen who laced their instructions with invective and degradation. Bob Matthews, the publisher of The Tracy Press in California, said something to me once, and I've taken it on as a mantra: Every employee is a volunteer. There is no room to berate volunteers. You should be thankful for anybody who is trading their time for your money.