The following information is provided for the benefit of anyone in the Wikipedia community who wants to know my general qualifications and background. This information may be helpful when, in the course of debating a point or examinng an edit change, you wish to consider my credibility or perspective.

• I have a Ph.D. in physics from University of Florida (2001), a J.D. from University of Florida (1977), and a B.A. in mathematics from the University of South Florida (1972).

• My physics training is of a general theoretical nature with some emphasis in condensed matter physics, though my professional physics interests remain general.

• I would not classify myself as a mathematician, but my math training does include some functional analysis and my general relativity exposure naturally entails a useful amount of differential geometry.

• Other practical experience at a professional level which could be applied to some Wikipedia editing includes the fact that I was a practicing instrument flight instructor for a time and the fact that I have practiced law and continue to be involved in litigation activities. It may be helpful to know that I have been a commercial software developer, did a fair amount of C++ work, database application development, and many other software related things over time. I am not, however, well qualified in web development work.

• I can do decent rough carpentry and some fine work, some plastering, and some electrical work at the journeyman level.

• I have about 5 years worth of regular classroom teaching and tutoring experience at the college level -- and I am not referring here to teaching labs which, like most graduate physics students, I also did.

• I have given a decent number of conference presentations to accompany submitted papers and recently done some journal publications related to currently proposed Space Elevator designs.

I will draw the line here in an effort to avoid self-promotion. However, all of the above, save perhaps for the mention of basic construction skills, should prove relevant to the goal of providing a useful background summary for editors, administrators, collaborators or debating opponents in this enterprise. --scanyon 05:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)