A Community and Industry Leader, Neighbor, and Dad

Elected Office and Community Activities

Toby has been active in our community for many years. He is an elected commissioner of King County Fire Protection District 41, which serves the Kingsgate, North Juanita, and Finn Hill areas of Kirkland. He serves as president and a member of the Board of Directors of Washington Coalition for Open Government, a non-profit, non-partisan organization that educates citizens and public officials about the right of the people to access public records and meetings. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Heart of America Northwest (one of the leading organizations advocating for cleanup of the Hanford nuclear site), on the Advisory Councils of both the Lake Washington Schools Foundation and Youth Eastside Services (YES) (and is a former board member of YES), and as a member of the Washington State Historical Records Advisory Board. He was recently appointed by Attorney General Rob McKenna and State Auditor Brian Sonntag to serve on an Open Government Task Force to study mechanism for enforcing Washington's open public records and meetings laws. He is webmaster (and past holder of several offices including president) of his homeowners association, and a Merit Badge Counselor for the Boy Scouts of America. He’s an active member of his church, where he serves as public affairs director, sings in the choir, volunteers in the food and clothing bank, and has led the annual Christmas gift program for needy families (in association with Kirkland Interfaith Transitions in Housing). He was a member of the board of Citizens for One Kirkland, supporting annexation of Kingsgate, North Juanita, and Finn Hill into Kirkland. He chaired Citizens for Accountable Elections, sponsor of Initiative 25 (2007) to make the King County Director of Elections an elected non-partisan office. He has received numerous awards and recognitions for his community and legislative service, including the “Freedom’s Light Award” from the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association for his support of First Amendment rights in Washington, “Government Partner of the Year” from Greater Redmond Chamber of Commerce, “Hanford Clean-up Hero” from Heart of America Northwest, “Award of Appreciation” from King County Parent Coalition for Developmental Disabilities, and “Guardian of Small Business” from the National Federation of Independent Business.

Toby served as State Representative for the 45th Legislative District from January, 2002, through January, 2007. He served on the House committees on State Government Operations and Accountability (ranking member), Technology, Energy and Communications, and Transportation from 2003 through 2006, and previously served on the House Finance committee and the House committee on Children and Family Services. He also served four years on the Joint Legislative Systems Committee (which oversees all the computer and networks systems of the legislature) and on the Joint Administrative Rules Review Committee (which insures that executive branch rules do not exceed legislative authority). He served on the Attorney General's Advisory Council on Identity Theft, on the Joint Select Committee on the Homeowner Association Act, on the executive committee organizing the annual Governor's Prayer Breakfast, on King County's Community Advisory Board on Disabled Accessible Voting Equipment, and on the Joint Task Force on Local Effort Assistance (school levy equalization).

Professional Experience

Toby works as Senior Standards Program Manager in the Windows Ecosystem Engagement Team at Microsoft in Redmond, where he develops technical standards policy for the Windows organization and represents Microsoft in a number of national and international standards development organizations. He’s held various positions with Microsoft since January of 1993. His expertise is in networked devices and communicating over the Internet, and he takes a special interest in communication for people with disabilities. For nine years prior to joining Microsoft, Toby was Principal Engineer and Standards Committee Representative for Hayes Microcomputer Products, then the leading manufacturer of modems for personal computers.

Toby is a member of the board of directors (and former chairman) of UPnP Forum, an organization of over 850 companies working together to create standards for smart home technology. He is co-chair of the Web Services Discovery and Devices Profile Technical Committee of the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards. He is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, was a founding member of the Board of Directors for the Voice on the Net Coalition, and a past member of the board of the International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium, which awarded him the IMTC President's Award. He holds several patents in the area of computer communications, and has chaired a variety of industry committees within such organizations as the Telecommunications Industry Association and the International Telecommunication Union. Toby’s career has been focused on building consensus on standards and policy issues to enable the computer communications industry to move forward and effectively serve customers, and he applies this experience in all of his other activities to bring together people having disparate views to work toward common goals.

Personal

Toby comes from humble beginnings. His father, son of an airplane factory worker, served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War and was an inspector for the company that produced rocket engines for the U.S. space program until he was injured in a work accident. Toby’s parents separated and eventually divorced. After disability compensation ran out and still unable to work, Toby’s father raised his three sons on public assistance such as welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, free school lunch programs, and government surplus food, while struggling through a string of failed attempts to start small businesses he could do despite his disability. Toby was introduced to computers early in high school, and excelled; he got his first computer job at the age of 16 through the CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) program, working for the Shasta County government in California. He spent a short time in college (where he won a prestigious computer programming award and, as a freshman, worked as a tutor for juniors and seniors in programming courses), but chose to pursue his career and quickly became an expert on the leading edge of computer communications and telephony. Now, his more than 30 years of experience in a wide range of technologies enables him to devote time to serving his country, state, community, and family -- but he never forgets where he came from, and the help he received from so many people along the way.

Toby and his wife Irene have been married for 27 years. They have five children, Mary 24 years old, Sarah 23, Robert 21, Julia 19, and Tom 17, and reside in the Kingsgate neighborhood of Kirkland, along with Toby's mom Pat, and two cats. He was born in 1959 in Van Nuys, California, graduated from Shasta High School in Redding in 1976, and attended California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. His hobbies include playing the piano, singing in church and community choirs and in barbershop quartets, and volunteering web site management for several local organizations.