A little bit about me

I live in Harwood, in South County, just off Harwood Road near Southern High School, with my wife Hollie and daughter Mikayla (and dog Aboof). Except for time I spent overseas (and a stint working in Virginia), I have lived my entire life in Maryland, and, since 1990, in Anne Arundel County.

I am a Baltimore boy. I grew up near Forest Park golf course; when I was in fourth grade my family moved to Randallstown. I went to Poly, played some football there, and graduated in 1969. I went to Antioch College, which had started a branch in Columbia. I graduated from Antioch in 1973.

Antioch is one of those colleges that requires its students to work. In my senior year, I worked for an organization called the Maryland Health Maintenance Committee, which was organized to start HMO’s throughout the Baltimore area, then a revolutionary idea. After I graduated, I became the Assistant Executive Director of the West Baltimore Community Health Center, which provided health services to low-income residents of West Baltimore.

Having gotten a start in health care, in 1973 I went to Johns Hopkins School of Public Health to get a master’s degree in health planning. At the time, I was the youngest student in the history of the school (or so I was told). Upon graduating from Hopkins, I served as an Operations Officer for the Center for Disease Control, coordinating a survey in Sri Lanka that assessed the health status of children under 6. When that work was over, I traveled throughout the Indian sub-continent, visiting India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nepal.

In 1976 I returned to the United States, and became the Executive Director of the Rappahannock EMS Council, in Fredericksburg, Virginia, an agency which coordinated the emergency medical responses of nine rescue squads. In 1979, I switched gears, and became a senior advisor to an international development organization – VITA (Volunteers in Technical Assistance) – which helped entrepreneurs all over the world use renewable energy technologies, such a solar collectors, bio-gas digesters, and windmills. In the course of doing this work, I became a consultant to the Pan American Health Organization, and had a hand in the design of the Jamaican emergency medical services system.

In 1982, I switched gears a second time, and went to law school at Georgetown. I was on the Dean’s List every semester, was a member of a law review, and graduated with honors. I then clerked for a judge on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, and then made my way into private practice.

Since 1992, I have run my own practice, specializing in civil litigation. I represent unions, corporations and individuals. My partners, Hollie Cutler and Anita Deger, primarily practice in the area of family law, and are well-known for their expertise. In fact, Hollie was recently recognized as one of Maryland’s “Elite Lawyers” by Baltimore’s SmartCEO magazine (I nominated her).

I said at the beginning of this narrative that I was a Baltimore boy. That means, to me, I come from a background that celebrates the working man, the little guy, that appreciates justice, tolerance and diversity. It is with those instincts that I come to where I am now in life, the name partner of a well-respected law firm, happily married, living in a wonderful area, and your candidate for County Council.

Eric Lipsetts

September 2006