A little more about my background in life, below…international, sustainability-ist, surfer and athlete, in love with San Francisco and city culture, still single…(December 2021).
International. I was born in Canada, to Irish parents, then mostly grew up in England near London. I’ve lived and studied in Edinburgh (Economics and Business), Grenoble (Economics and Business) and Sydney (Environmental Management). And, after making a life rule to always live by the ocean, I moved to San Francisco in 2011. So my accent is a quirky mess, and you can decide where I’m from. I wrote about this in 2016 in On Our Family, And Roaming.
Sustainability-ist. My definition of environmental sustainability is using human innovation and progress to continually lighten our footprint on the earth’s natural resources. For 20 years now, my work life has mostly been at the intersection of finance and sustainability. I trained as an investment analyst from 1998 – 2002 (and still today a Chartered Financial Analyst), then in 2003 completed a Masters in Environmental Management focusing on natural resource economics, climate change economics and shareholder value measurement from corporate sustainability initiatives enjoying being part of the Ecos Consulting group as a part-time staffer during that time focused on finance and insurance sector clients. In the ten years following, I worked in project finance for a short period at HSBC and then made a shift into alternative investment management including hedge fund management (International Asset Management, one of the first Fund-of-Funds), and carbon asset management in both regulated (for Natsource) and voluntary carbon markets (for Terra Global Capital). Since 2013, I have proudly worked at Equilibrium on private market investment strategies in food and infrastructure. In sustainability areas, I’m more into cracking open numbers and what humans actually do, than ideologies and what they say. I think this is really important to effect change, because the ‘religiousness’ of some corners of the sustainability sector just doesn’t seem to be working. You can see my professional profile on LinkedIn.
Surfer-Athlete. I first paddled into the ocean in 1998, on the island of Jersey off France with a posse of Edinburgh University buddies, days after our last finals exams. And in that very first hour I got hooked on wrestling with the ocean, I still remember it. The passion hasn’t changed, and surfing moves me more viscerally than the many other interests I get distracted by! Surfing was a segue to 19 years of rugby, a full-back and wing. Both taught me a lot about life and engaging with fear, and what makes for good decision-making (and bad). Today, I’m also a once-per-year triathlete, and have competed in the Escape From Alcatraz triathlon five times so far. Oh, and I have a weird curiosity in mobility exercises to stay limber, determined to have some elegance surfing into my 80s. I’ve written about surfing in Dawn Magic and The Moment You Drop Into A Wave and about my last game of rugby – and one-helluva-character-of-a-team-mate, Vinny (RIP) – in On The Death Of A Friend Of Old.
Love San Francisco, love city culture. I adore cities and have lived in San Francisco since 2011, loving its landscape, architecture, small city culture and a mindset that plays with difference, counter-culture and innovation. I grew up playing classical and jazz music on the clarinet, piano and saxophone, and painting and drawing (I was a Music and All-Rounder scholar at school…!), all thanks to Mum and Dad throwing the kitchen sink at supporting my hyperactive interests. They indulged my desire to go to a boarding school twenty minutes from home because I didn’t want to waste forty minutes a day in the car! I still adore occasional quiet time in galleries and live jazz, and it’s a dream that I’ll get back to playing the tenor saxophone with a decent tone. It’s a bit of a blocky honking noise today, sadly… I wrote Branford Marsalis And A Fire Engine, In Grace Cathedral in 2017, and Reflection On Family Time In An Art Gallery in 2018. Lastly, I really enjoy speaking French and the small touches of french culture.
Instinct to write. I loved writing essays at school, and have enjoyed writing letters all my life, encouraged by Mum. I first bought this domain name in 2000 (!), noticing how I admired some of the emerging bloggers sharing resource with the world. Per Archives, I wrote occasionally, eventually, on a plane usually. But found myself way too ‘writing-shy’ to share it. It was in 2012 that I started to fiddle with WordPress every now and then. And it was in 2021, during a travel sabbatical, that the old Chinese proverb:
“the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is today”
…started shouting in my ear.
Writing is hard, but valuable, I believe. ‘Hard means good’ I remember thinking one day, bobbing to the surface after a beating in the ocean while surfing, exhausted but laughing out loud with exhilaration. Life is just too interesting to not jot it down and share from time to time.
So, I finally finished this site shortly after writing San Francisco, ‘Home‘ in December 2021. And, I write a little more about the backstory in My Big Project Of 2022.
Still single. And still believe in love. So, I guess I’ll just keep tangoing until the two-step feels right. I haven’t written an essay about this yet! Perhaps one day there will be a ‘Family’ tab, but the odds are zizzing away fast. Though I always thought I would have many children, and dreamed of messy meals with spaghetti being flung up to dangle off the ceiling, I’m accepting of that. I’ll have more time to be a fun uncle to my niece and nephew and godfather to six friends’ kids. And, I guess I’ll surf more in the meantime…
Right now…the 2022 New Year starts with me excited to return to work at Equilibrium, after a three-month travel sabbatical. The trip had two themes, traveling with my Dad in Ireland, Scotland, France and Spain, and traveling with my surfboard in Panama, Ecuador and The Galapagos and Peru – and I wrote about it all in Postcards From Sabbatical. I am gently starting to train for the 2022 Escape From Alcatraz. And I hope to squeeze in the odd day trip to ski or snowshoe, and the odd chilly Ocean Beach dawn surf to re-acclimatize to cold waters after Ecuador, Peru and Panama waves.
