About Greg Lynn

Who is this builder who has the nerve to run for County Commission?

My connection with the Carson Valley goes back to before I was born. My mother was in the Army during WWII flying B-17s out of the Minden airport as a ferry pilot. My father was also a pilot and ran a crop dusting business here during the war. In the winter they dumped hay out of the bombers to feed the range cattle. When folks gripe about growth and say they’d like to see the valley the way it was in 1995 (or 1990 or 1985), in a perfect world I’d like it the way it was in 1955. Alas, those days are behind us.

I grew up in central California, attending St. Mary’s High School in Stockton, St. Mary’s College, in Moraga, with graduate work at San Francisco State University.

I’ve been a licensed building contractor in Nevada since 1985, and would have been content to spend my career building three or four houses a year, and spending a month every fall exploring and camping in backwoods Nevada,  but hip surgeries in 1993 forced a career change into small development projects. 

I’m a life-long Republican, a 28 year local resident and have lived in the district I seek to represent since 2002. I’ve also been doing business in district since 1995 and have run a general contracting business in the County as a licensed contractor since 1985. In the late 80”s and early 90’s I was involved with what was then the Builder’s Association of Douglas County, serving as vice-president for four years and also serving as Association liaison to the County Building Department where I wrote the department’s newsletter for ten years, keeping the building community current with code and policy changes.

More recently I spent sixteen months sitting across the table with representatives from the Sustainable Growth Initiative Committee, coming to a compromise agreement that ultimately resulted in the adoption of the current building permit allocation system in July of 2007.

Additionally, I spent the summer of 2007 as facilitator of a County/Industry review panel updating the County’s Design Manual for development projects (roads, sewer, water and drainage). We were able to come to terms on just about everything, except for the drainage element, and the update was adopted by the Board of Commissioners in the fall of 2007.

Also, in 1997 I was approached by the County to design and build the Douglas County Shooting Facility. This project was done on a volunteer basis on my part, largely employing trusty labor from the jail, as well as participation from a variety of local contractors, and was completed in the spring of 1998. In the fall of 2007 I again volunteered to reconstruct this facility to improve public safety for the long run, and this effort was completed in November of 2007. Do I need to mention that I am a dedicated target shooter?

What I hope to demonstrate with this brief resume is a long-term familiarity with the internal County dynamics and a history of working with a variety of County department staff, from Manager, Sheriff, Parks, and others.

I’ve come to the decision to run for this office through a somewhat non-traditional series of public service experiences. Rather than describe this complicated sequence of events, I’ll just say that I’ve had 20 years of practice at doing the homework and am ready and willing to put forth the effort required. Anyone is welcome to call for more details or expansion on my thoughts on how I feel the County should work. I’m a working man so I’m not home during the day and you’ll get my answering machine. Don’t worry, I’ll call back.  265-9340