Online or by mail: Patrick Thomas White Committee • 81 Hawthorne St. • Lenox, MA 01240

Let me introduce myself

Everyone loved my mom and dad, Ronnie and Russ White. Same for my sister Kathy and brother Mike. My mom Ronnie grew up in a small town in Massachusetts and my dad Russ grew up in Providence. Dad got out of the Army in 1957 and they moved to the Berkshires for a job at GE. They lived on Kimble Street in Lenox near Bellefontaine, what is now Canyon Ranch. The met the Mahoneys and our families have enjoyed a lifelong friendship. Mine is a small-town Berkshire story. Everyone knew me.

In 1960, in their early 20s, they bought the house I currently live in. The price was $10,000, and the down payment was made with a gift from Fr. Tom, who was a parish priest in Lenox. I was adopted at two months old and am named after him, Patrick Thomas White.

Even with this gift, the mortgage was a heavy lift. I remember them struggling and worrying and working so hard. My mom worked two jobs and my dad three jobs just to get by. They did that and put food on the table three meals a day for their three adopted kids. One of my dad's gig jobs was running the sports complex in Lenox at what is now Shakespeare and Co. My dad loved hockey and baseball and I grew up understanding the importance of sports and the outdoors to kids. Despite how hard they worked, they volunteered: my dad coached the Interlaken Indians, Squirt Hockey, and Monument's hockey team. My mom volunteered at the Stockbridge Visitor Center and was more religious, with a lifelong commitment to Catholic Charities.

I learned to appreciate the values of folks who need to work for a living and I work hard to work for you.

I was a gifted child intellectually but even that didn't come easy. You see, I was severely near-sighted which went undiagnosed until the second grade. The teachers would ask how do you spell this? Can you answer a simple math question? I couldn't because I couldn't see the chalkboard. I was placed in a class for kids with learning disabilities. I didn't excel until I finally got glasses. I'm sure a psychologist would say that informed my lifeling long drive to overachieve. Go figure.

I grew up fishing for trout and still split my own wood for the fireplace and the wood stove.

I did well in high school and was editor of MMRHS' Maroon Reflections. I won many scholarships my senior year. I had a lot of fun and had great friends, like Rob Henderson and Steve Rose and Gary Chamberlain and Jackie Igoe and Karen Mercer and Tori Gabriel. I won some scholarships and was relieved to be able to lessen college's financial burden on my parents.

I was accepted at Boston College the same year as Henry Baldwin, a classmate from West Stockbridge. I was elected editor-in-chief of the BC student newspaper my sophomore year, only the second time that happened in 100 years. I graduated with the Finneran Commencement Award, given to two seniors each year out of 2,000 graduates. My cousin and I are the same age, and we together were the first in our family to graduate from college.

I was a gifted economics student at BC and was offered a position at the Boston Federal Reserve. I declined, and instead started a small business, a graphic design studio right out of college at 21. By 25 I had the BSO, Boston Ballet and the John F. Kennedy Library as my biggest clients.

I then founded one training and three Internet start-ups, raising over $35 million in venture capital. Through these efforts, I created nearly a hundred good paying jobs over my career.

I now serve as the Chief Financial Officer for a Berkshire non-profit, the Berkshire Waldorf High School. We're the folks who just purchased Old Town Hall in Stockbridge and are embarking on a $7 million renovation to save this iconic structure. I served locally on the Conservation Commission and ran and won a seat on the Stockbridge Select Board. I was reelected in a landslide, getting more votes than anyone in the modern history of the town, at least according to the Town Clerk. I also serve on our Housing Trust, Cemetery Commission, and Community Preservation Committee.

I am impressed by drive. I respect accomplishment. I encourage self-confidence. I am never intimidated or star struck.

If you are wondering why I made career jumps, the answer is cancer. I got a doozy of a diagnosis in my 20s, in my 30s, and in my 50s. I will just say this about that. I am a proud survivor. I know what it's like to spend months in the ICU. I know what it's like to get it in the brain, in the blood, even in the heart (I was the first person ever to have a cancer of the heart biopsy at Mass General!). If you are lucky enough to survive, and start over, as I have had to do multiple times, you gain a certain perspective. For me that means do not wait while life passes you by. Enjoy every day. Be happy. Don't take yourself too seriously. Work hard every day you can. Learn to relax and accept when you can't. Stare down adversity and say screw you, not today.

When you read the rest of these pages, you will see how my life experiences have informed my positions on health care, on the environment, on families, on why I am on a mission to preserve a local way of life that I think is worth preserving. And if you think I can't get all this done, think again. I have been exceeding expectations my entire life.

PS: Running costs money. I need your help. If you believe, like I do, that we have hope, that we can control our own destiny, that we can move the needle on the seemingly intractable issues we face, please consider donating to my campaign.

Atop the elephant rock.