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Candidate Bio
I was born and raised and still live in Marydel as a lifelong resident of Caroline County, and family means everything to me. I am very close with my parents, my three sisters, and my many nieces and nephews.
I began my career in the judiciary at just 19 years old with the Justice of the Peace Court in Dover, Delaware, where I worked for seven years. I then joined the Caroline County Circuit Court, where I have proudly served for the past 12 years. I currently serve as the Supervisor of the Juvenile and Civil Departments, with experience in child support, family, criminal, and licensing matters. I also oversee the cashiering process, ensuring all financial operations are accurate and properly balanced.
Outside of work, I enjoy hunting, fishing, and spending time outdoors. I have also proudly served as a firefighter with the Goldsboro Volunteer Fire Company for 15 years, where I currently hold the rank of Fire Captain.
I look forward to continuing to serve the residents of Caroline County.
How does the office that you are seeking serve citizens in Caroline County?
A lot of people come to the courthouse for various things. We've got marriages, divorces, custody cases, land records. I would like to strive in a customer service-focused way. I want to be able to provide the resources if we can't answer a question, because there is a fine line between legal advice and giving someone procedural information. I want to be able to provide people with the resources, which the county and the state is really good about having – free attorneys, free legal advice offered at different courthouses, different locations. You can even do it remotely.
None of us are attorneys, so we can't give any legal advice or anything like that. We can only help with procedural questions. A lot of the questions that we get are timeframe based, like, what happens next? What if this happens? That kind of thing. And we can tell them that, but we can't tell them what to write or anything.
Actually, in Caroline County, we have a free legal clinic that comes for family cases Monday mornings, and we also have it on the third Thursday of every month at the library, and that has proven to be a big help for people that are struggling filling out forms or anything.
I think that if you go into a place and you ask them a question, you can tell when that person is unsure of the answer. And I want people to be confident knowing that they're coming to the clerk's office and they're getting the answers that they need. There's plenty of times that people come in or call. I may even have to call them back, and I've been doing it for 12 years. I might have to call them back because I have to look up a Maryland rule or statute to get them the answer that they need. We don't need to have all the answers. We just need to point them in the right direction.
A lot of people that come into the courthouse – it's not exactly their favorite place to be. Unless they're coming in for an adoption or a wedding, it's usually not a happy occasion that they're coming for. And that's why I strive for the customer service part. I'm a volunteer with the fire company, so any call I go on is generally that person's worst day. It just it changes everything when you can treat somebody just a little bit better, treat them like a human, and it changes their day. It changes your day. It makes your job easier.
If your office budget has significant budget cuts, how do you imagine you will handle this?
I think the clerks in the state of Maryland are pretty communicative with each other. In the beginning, I would probably reach out to the more seasoned clerks and get some advice as to because I don't want to cut something that later in the fiscal year I might regret. Supplies are supplies; they're necessary, so there's no going around it. I know that overtime is budgeted, and I would probably end up having to cut that budget. Most of the overtime comes from court hearings, but employees would still be awarded comp time for anything over eight hours. I would possibly cut the travel budget.
Your office is a state office serving Caroline County residents. How will you manage local needs with state requirements?
We do everything by the state. Other counties are bigger, so their clerks will only have one particular task, like one piece of the pie of one department, whereas the people in our office – which is a considerably smaller office than, say, Montgomery County – are well versed in each of our departments. We're currently working on cross training. Ultimately, I would like to have everyone cross-trained in something and be professional in two departments just because we're a small office. So if somebody's out because they're sick or had surgery or a vacation, we're able to help the public, instead of just taking a (phone) number and having someone call you back.
