Every candidate promises to serve people with integrity and good sense as part of a campaign to win your vote. But, knowing whether the candidate will actually carry out these promises, you have to look at what he has actually DONE in life over a long period of time. Here is Lee’s record of experience in life to judge for yourself. Lee was born in Prince George’s County, and raised in College Park, where he resides today. He attended all years of local public schools, College Park Elementary, Hyattsville Junior High, and graduated from Northwestern High School in 1961. After graduation, he attended University of Connecticut, where he received a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1965, and then later, a one-year degree in foreign trade at the International School of Foreign Trade in Glendale, AZ.
Peace Corps – Panama
From 1966-68, Lee served in the Peace Corps in Panama, as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Panama. During this time, he taught math and engineering subjects in the Spanish language, alongside his Panamanian counterpart professor, Roberto Smith. While in Panama, he lived in a nearby low Lee in front of residence during his Peace Corps service in Panama (1966-68)income community, where he interacted daily with the local residents.
Government Employment and Legal Training
After Peace Corps, Lee returned to the United States, where he was employed as a patent examiner with the US Patent Office. During this time, Lee attended night classes in the study of law at the Catholic University of America (Washington, DC). In 1973, he obtained his J.D. degree in law from that institution, and was later admitted to the Maryland bar to eventually become qualified to appear before the Supreme Court of the United States.
Training Teachers
Lee’s growing interest in education led him into the teaching profession, where he obtained specialized training in Montessori teaching, and an M. Ed. Degree in early childhood education at the University of Maryland in 1974. In time, he organized an in-home tutoring program, Trust Tutoring, and in 1979, founded the International Montessori Society (IMS) to train teachers and support learning based on his unique discoveries and research into the work of Dr. Maria Montessori. In this work, Lee contributed his unique ideas and understanding of Montessori teaching through IMS periodicals, major Montessori texts, a distance learning training course, and has conducted over 150 workshops throughout the world, including China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Philippines, Australia, Canada, as well as in the United States.
Outreach to Hispanic Community
Based on his early experience in Panama, Lee has remained an active contributor to improve conditions in the Hispanic community. He has appeared occasionally on Hispanic news broadcast media, such as DC Contigo and Asiesmigente.com to express his views of various topics of interest to the international Hispanic community. For example, he has discussed a “character teaching” project he created to overcome poverty in Latin America through his unique, innovative ideas in the area of teacher education.
Public Interest Politics
In the 1970’s, Lee became interested in politics as a civic activist in Silver Spring, MD where he was active in his neighborhood civic association and in efforts to reform the organization and operation of the Montgomery County Democratic Party. This interest in more grassroots citizen participation in politics led to his leadership in organizing a means to allow some 1400 persons to actively engage in selecting candidates before the county’s Democratic primary elections. Based on this experience in public interest politics, he eventually organized a statewide non-partisan organization, known as “Maryland Public Assembly” to open up candidate evaluation and endorsement to ALL interested citizens. In 2009, Lee continued his public interest political work by organizing a national support structure, known as the Patriot Vetting Committee (PVC, http://patriotvoting.com), to provide means for consensus vetting of public interest candidates in each state. Thereafter, he organized the group Free State Patriots (http://meetup.com/Free-State-Patriots) to use the PVC vetting tools for evaluating and endorsing candidate in Maryland. Through Free State Patriots, Lee scheduled and conducted many candidate forums around the state, which led to endorsements and support of various candidates for national and state offices. In 2016, he formed the Citizens for a Better Prince George’s County (http://pg1282.wixsite.com/pgcitizens) to improve public awareness for better government in Prince George’s County. Through this grassroots citizen group, Lee has raised public awareness and funding for a law suit to challenge the county increase of property tax rates without voter approval as required by the local county charter, known as TRIM. Lee remains passionately interested in the idea of mobilizing grassroots citizen involvement to assure a self-governing society for the benefit of all.
Republican Party Activity
After 2000, Lee joined the Republican party, and in 2013, was appointed and later elected to represent Legislative District 21 on the Prince George’s Republican Party central committee. In this capacity, he was active in organizing a grassroots precinct organization and eventually elected to serve as 2nd vice chair of the committee. In 2014, he was elected president of the Northern Prince George’s County Republican Club. Later, he organized Maryland Grassroots Republicans to help unify statewide support for principles and candidates of the Republican Party. Throughout Lee’s extensive life experiences with public issues, education, and people, he has come to know and appreciate the potential value of each individual. As State Senator, he is seeking to contribute this knowledge to help improve the life and well-being of all citizens in the state.