About Us

Like most, I started model railroading as a kid. Got the train set, HO in my case, at about nine years old. I immediately started reading the magazines and then started trying to build stuff out of balsa wood. I kept on and off for years, building a couple of 4x8s and an N scale layout for my son. I went to a lot of train shows, got the stuff I knew I would need someday. Now I am making sure that I get modeling time every day. It is my favorite part of the day.  I served for two years as the Superintendent of the Little Rhody Division of the  and served a term on the Northeastern Region NMRA board.  I am making slow but steady progress toward the Master Model Railroader designation (I have four of the seven, working on the last three). Scott is a software entrepreneur (want to learn to write Chinese? Go to skritter.com.  Want to learn to code while playing an online game?  You can learn to program at Code Combat . His wife, Deandra, is a Dean at the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley. Althea is married and living in Brooklyn with her husband Matt and three(!) children, Magnolia, Isaac and Hazel. Maggie and Isaac are twins. They have a great summer place in Connecticut. She is the Director at the Rustle Lab at Center for Cultural Innovation. 

I retired from my job as a judge at the Rhode Island District Court a while ago, but have continued to work and consult after leaving the bench. I currently teach at Roger Williams Law School and the Warren Alpert School of Medicine forensic psychiatry fellowship program. It is an interdisciplinary project that brings law students and mental health professionals into a single course of study, exploring the relationship between medicine and the law. I am an adjunct professor of psychiatry and behavioral health at the medical school, where I was awarded the Outstanding Teacher Award in Forensic Psychiatry last year. 

I also continue my advocacy for better behavioral health programs, serve on a hospital ethics committee, and function as a caregiver. For thirteen years I helped facilitate a support group for caregivers of people with serious mental illness. I have a link on the top menu to mental health resources, but if you want to see one of the agencies I work with, check out Newport Mental Health.   Another organization I helped get established is a consortium of mental health agencies, Horizon Healthcare Partners. 

A few years back I did an article on the Chester and Becket Railroad, an F scale behemoth that has been shown at the Amhurst Model Railroad Show for several years and is now complete.  It has since been retired from the show. There is a video of the portable sections (which is a charitable description of them) here.

The same group that built the Chester and Becket is now working on an O scale World War 2 era Alaskan layout.  Photos to come.

A few years ago, we downsized — a great single floor condo with an 1,800 square foot untouched basement!  I built a workshop room in one part, another large section now holds the benchwork for my HO scale OCD railroad (Old Colony Division) and a lounge area in progress. An unfinished area will store my T-Trak modules.