Answering the question - who am I

So, I usually write about some issue I think is important but this post is a bit different.  I am not writing about the war, Obama or America's jails I am answering the question I get asked while campaigning...

Who is Gary Winfield

Born in 1974 to Araminta and Gary Winfield He grew up in a place where many saw nothing past the next few days. Early on Gary’s environment made him aware of the hazards of limited vision. Seeing those around him including his father succumb to the ills of the pervasive drug culture Gary determined that he should never mimic that which he saw. As a child he began to escape reality by reading and in the process educating himself in areas not usually taught to children in his circumstances. This educative process coupled with the fortune he had of having a mother who wanted better for he and his siblings and the one gift his father gave him, a love for news and civil rights, shaped his trajectory in life.

In high school Gary discovered what he considers to be the greatest treasure in his life, Natalie his wife. After High School Gary would spend several years in the United States Navy's Nuclear Power Program (considered as the Navy’s toughest academic program) before leaving to work for Alstom Power Inc. During this time Gary realized the need for more involvement in urban schools by professionals such as himself and founded QUEST Educational Initiatives; a company originally designed to provide mentors electronically to those that did not have access to them. In 2003 Gary left the engineering field so that he could return to school and begin to find a means by which he could get involved in the social happenings of his community directly. It was during this time that Gary served as an intern for the then Appropriations Committee chair, Bill Dyson. Gary has continued to work on issues in the criminal justice system both with Representative Dyson and on his own.

In the ensuing years Gary has remained busy by running, in 2003, for alderman in the local election cycle in New Haven. Gary went on to serve as co-chair of his ward for a time. He has worked across the state on issues affecting low income and minority communities. His work led to his becoming the chair of the Connecticut Federation of Black Democratic Clubs at the end of 2006.

Gary serves on the board of Family Reentry an organization dedicated to developing reentry issues for Connecticut’s citizens returning home from prison. Gary is also a board member of CTRIBAT and Empower New Haven due to his role as Newhallville neighborhood representative. He believes in activism and has worked with many local groups including People against Injustice, The Brotherhood Leadership Summit and others.

He is currently employed working for SCSU-AAUP a professor's union. Gary does legislative work there.

Gary is a member of and regularly attends Community Baptist Church. At the base of what he does is a philosophy that comes from his church experience – to love his neighbor. He knows that to do this requires more that rhetoric - it requires action.

He remains focused on community because community is important. Gary believes that leaders operate from amongst the people they wish to serve because that is where the wisdom resides.

Gary understands that no one may know what the future holds but whatever it may be he attempts to remember, in his work, the words he said himself in a speech he gave - words that drive him forward...

"History, that is to be written tomorrow ...to be read by our children ... to serve as their guide is written in our actions today. A greater call to responsibility I have not known"