His father was more responsible for him becoming an educator than anyone else in the family. Recalling how he had dropped out of his own college opportunity, it was imperative to him that Les not miss his own chance to matriculate. There had never been any question about higher education being part of his path. During his freshman year he came home from college during Thanksgiving break and ran into a few former high school buddies at the local mall who upon seeing him asked, “Hey, where you been?”. They had never been college bound. Les always was.
     Other unforgettable adult influences included a high school Social Studies teacher from his second year whose name was Bill Clark. Les said he was. “a phenomenal guy who put up with no nonsense either from him or his classmates.” He was admired as much for his professional demeanor and strength of character as he was for his commitment to Social Studies. Les was athletic and competed in a number of sports but when the football coach came to his home to recruit him by winning over his parents, they were having none of it, according to Les, “because they were Jewish.”
    His first paying job was delivering papers; first the Long Island Daily Press and then Newsday. He worked throughout high school as an usher in the local movie theatre where he saw every movie that came out.
     Growing up with his mother at home in what was described as a religious household, (his father was not particularly devout), stopped abruptly when she died and Les began to feel a degree of anger at religion and with God over her death, specifically in the way she died. Math and Social Studies were his favorite subjects in school. From the age of four his life was about bats and balls. Spring and baseball were his favorite seasons. He still favors Spring, but golf has replaced baseball as a passion.   
   His education began in Yonkers at PS 5. He next attended East Plain Elementary in North Massapequa, (also known as Matzah Pizza because if you lived there you were either Italian or Jewish) until construction of Charles E. Schwarting was completed. South Edge Junior High was next and then Plainedge High. That was where he had German 6th Period right after lunch where he remembered a teacher yelling out the window to him after 5th period to get back in school, because he was supposed to be in class. His Dean of Discipline was Dean Hendersen who wrote in his yearbook, “Dear Les, Nice to see you in school today”. Pointing to the irony of having chosen education as a path in his life he recognized full well that it was not without purpose, for as Superintendent he never measured the potential success of any candidate for a position by the degree of their performance in undergraduate classes. He always looked first to see how they related to students in their charge by the manner in which they had navigated the shoals of their own adolescent challenges.
   Les followed high school with four years at Cortland State. Between his Sophomore and Junior years he began dating his future wife who was a year ahead of him. They got married in between his Junior and Senior years. She had already graduated and had a job teaching upstate so that they could be together. He became a commuter his senior year between Binghamton (where she lived), and Cortland in a variety of cars that inevitably broke down somewhere between both places. From his junior year through his senior year and a variety of graduate schools, he became a more serious student, which he credited to becoming more mature in the choices he was making. His first Masters was from CW Post in Education. His 2nd Masters was in Labor Relations from Pace University. His Professional diploma in Administration was from NYU. In 1984 he became a Principal at Pine Park and was still seriously contemplating pursuing a doctorate degree. Prior to Brentwood he had taken many hours of courses through the Cornell Extension. During one of them he met an inspiring professor who took a liking to him and offered him a full ride at Washington University in DC. He thought seriously about accepting it but that would have taken him from Brentwood. He decided against it and never looked back. At a Staff Development Day the year before he retired, the fact of having 1,300 teachers honor him by a prolonged standing ovation remains as the single most convincing piece of evidence that he made the right decision to remain where he was.
   He came to Brentwood in 1967. They always knew they would come back to Long Island. They had come down during his senior year and had interviews scheduled on a Friday and Saturday for both he and his wife. They interviewed in six different school districts. She got offers in five, he got offers in five. Her area was Elementary Education. The reason they both didn’t get the sixth was because two of the districts didn’t offer positions to a husband and wife. He was chosen in one and she the other. They decided upon Brentwood not knowing a lot about the district but they liked the people there who interviewed them and the feeling they got there. Their prospective Principals were Jack Hoffman, Principal of Oak Park and Ralph Saikin, Principal at North Elementary who had interviewed Les. They were both offered jobs that very day. They both said yes and never regretted their decisions.
   In speaking of changes he witnessed over the years Les referenced “white flight” as the demographics became more diverse in the last ten to fifteen years. He remembered Elizabeth Matsen who was a GIS ‘Godsend’ teaching him and other new staff hires how to teach reading and set up reading groups. There was Phil Ache’, who was an institution on the grade level at North Elementary. Maddy Dwyer was instrumental in helping him when he arrived as a painfully shy, almost withdrawn person - to become able to address large groups of teachers as painful and difficult as that was for him in the beginning. In his 2nd year Maddy convinced Les to become a union delegate and he found he enjoyed going to meetings and using it as an outlet. While a delegate he worked under the radar. After he was given tenure and became a bit more active, he was more vocal and no longer the fair haired boy to Administrators in the building. He became someone they should keep an eye on. He got involved in grievances and began serving as Grievance Chair. He went to Negotiations where, in terms of personal intellectual growth, it opened avenues for him. He got to work with and develop lifelong friendships with people outside the building. He found it fascinating to get involved with problem solving through the grievance machinery. That was how he met Guy DiPietro for the first time. It was he who probably had more influence as an Administrator on Les than any other person he’s known. They developed great mutual respect working on grievances and across the negotiation table. Every so often Guy would say to him, “Why don’t you go and get your administrative degree?” For six or seven years Les would regularly reply, “because I don’t want to become an Administrator. But there came a time when the classroom started to close in on him. He requested and received one of the last Sabbaticals the district offered. That was the year he got his degree in Labor Relations. After that he realized he could never return to the classroom again. It was around 1982. He ran for President of the BTA got his Administrative degree and became Principal of Pine Park for a year. Then he went to Central Administration in 1984-85.