Our Story…
Meet Elwyn and Derek
Elwyn lives in Austin, Texas, where he complains year round about the weather. In the last 30 years he’s worked for his fathers small business; gone to law school; worked for Legal Services then a small firm; sold legal research owned a series of small gyms and been a pall bearer for hire for a local funeral home.
Along the way he got married, had 2 kids, a couple of dogs and now 2 cats. He’s tried, but failed, to keep innumerable fish and small domestic rodents alive.
Elwyn believes firmly that a healthy society is one where there is a good relationship between government and the people. Where we support those in need while also creating an environment where businesses can innovate and grow. And healthcare is a right.
As an American Jew Elwyn also pays close attention to jew hatred in the US and the often fraught relationship between the State of Israel and being a Jew in America. It bothers him that on duty police are required at religious holidays and Jewish camps.
Most of all Elwyn hopes that his opinions are received with the understanding that they’re well meaning and usually thought out. And he is always hopeful for a better future
Derek lives in South Austin, Texas, with his wife, four kids and two dogs in a house where someone is almost always headed to a practice, game, gym or sporting event. He works in residential real estate, spends an unreasonable amount of time working out and has somehow decided that talking into microphones is what he wants to do with the rest of his free time.
He’s a season ticket holder for Texas football and women’s volleyball, a lifelong sports fan and the father or stepfather of four kids who all play sports, which means a significant percentage of his life is spent either watching athletics or driving someone to them.
Derek’s wife is deaf, and he began learning American Sign Language after they met. Their two white boxers are deaf as well, which he maintains was not intentional. Becoming part of the Deaf community changed the way he thinks about accessibility and helped fuel a broader passion for advocating for people whose voices are too easily ignored.
That carries into his politics. Derek is passionate about transparency, honesty and standing up for marginalized people and underdogs. He believes government should actually work for the people it represents and has become increasingly interested in local politics, where decisions often have a much more immediate impact on people’s everyday lives than whatever everyone is yelling about in Washington.
He doesn’t fit particularly comfortably into a political box and prefers it that way. He believes good ideas can come from either side, bad ideas certainly can, and loyalty to a political party should never be more important than loyalty to your values. He’s far more interested in understanding why people believe what they believe than winning an argument with them.
Most importantly, Derek believes people should be willing to change their minds when presented with better information. Before You Speak is partly his attempt to practice that in public: ask better questions, listen to people who disagree, admit when you’re wrong and try to leave the conversation understanding the world a little better than when you entered it.