I live at Grove Court Condominiums in Cleveland’s Duck Island neighborhood, nestled between Tremont and Ohio City near West 25th Street and Lorain Avenue – also the site of the offices of my firm, The Project Group. My wife is Dr. Marie A. Simon, a dentist whose practice – Marie A. Simon, DDS – is in Avon Lake.
I have a deep love for Cleveland – raised at Kamm’s Corners, nurtured in the Ukrainian Orthodox community, and a proud product of the Cleveland public schools. I served as Cleveland City Councilman (1981 thru 1985) under then-Mayor George V. Voinovich. And I remain intimately involved with the community – especially its arts and cultural activities, local politics and community development.
For the past 30+ years, as the Managing Partner of The Project Group, I have had the opportunity to work with a large array of institutional, public- and private-sector clients – helping them to develop capital projects. We have served in roles ranging from Project Manager to Project Monitor – as well as Developer Partner, Owner’s Representative and Property Manager.
This career and these experiences have afforded me the opportunity to establish relationships with many people that have made an impact on this community. As I look at it, this background embraces three normally disparate interests – Arts & Culture; Local Government; and, Planning, Design & Construction.
With these interests in mind, a few years ago I started a blog called “The Z-Notes... from Duck Island.” I loved doing it – but frankly, it was a lot more work than I anticipated.
I have wanted to re-start the blog, and ultimately determined that it might be better if I had a partner. I’ve now found that partner – Casey Patrick Murphy, of Murphy Media. Casey is a great complement to me – a younger generation, a family man, from exurbia and with different interests.
One thing we have in common, though, is a desire to share our passions, connect people and develop alignments that bring focus to the interests, ideas and projects that will enhance the community we love.