Occupation: My wife Kim Cornell and I have a couple of furniture stores called Stockbridge & Berry. One is in Southbury, and one is in Monroe. We have modern country and farmhouse-style products and anything that has sort of a warm and relaxed elegance to it. My wife has been a retailer as long as she can remember. We started with gift shops in Monroe and New Haven in the mid-80s. It evolved into these furniture stores. We’ve been retailing in this area since 1985. The trick to business is to always be evolving.

I’m also a principal at a factory in Monroe called Cornell-Carr Company. We make marine windows and doors. We do a lot of Navy work and build windows for the aircraft carriers down to smaller vessels. I’ve been full-time there for about seven years.

Family: Kim and I have been married for 32 years. My mother and father are both 88 and live in Heritage Village in Southbury. They’re the most wonderful people. My father is very active doing Alternatives to Violence programs in prisons, including Garner, and it’s now a worldwide movement. My mother is a visual artist and painter who stays active and goes dancing every weekend.

Pets: None, but I’m quite fond of the baby vulture that has been living out in my barn this year. I have a workshop in my barn, and I kept hearing this rattling in the loft. When I checked it out it was a couple vultures and, over time, they had a little baby. We all need to learn to coexist with our other species friends.

How long have you lived in Newtown? Since 1995. Other than the town’s convenient location to our businesses, we moved here for the aesthetic beauty and the culture of the town.

What do you like to do in your free time? I play music. I love the violin and the mandolin. I’ve been playing for almost 15 years. I have a band called The Wool Hats String Band. We’ve been playing together for about five years. We play shows a couple of times a month, and most recently, we did the Black Bear Americana Festival up in Goshen. We were the inaugural act at the Flagpole Barn in Newtown and have played there a couple times. We also played the Newtown Arts Festival this year.

I also like to work on our old house in my free time. We have a colonial from 1800, and it’s on the Connecticut Register for Historic Places. It used to belong to the governor of Connecticut. It’s a very humble abode, but we love it.

What is your favorite travel destination? I like to go to music festivals. I enjoy the Black Bear Americana Festival in October and the Summer Hoot in the Catskills in August.

What is the best part about Newtown? Everything. I love every moment driving in Newtown. It’s a beautiful community. I love the visual and performing arts here. It has a wonderfully rich culture that puts its value in the right place and has a lot of very talented people.

Who has been the greatest influence in your life? Musically, it’s Roger Sprung. I’ve had the great honor of playing next to him for about 15 years. He just radiates goodness.

For life in general, I had a lot of influence in my early life from Maharishi Mahesh, The Beatles’ guru. I learned Transcendental meditation, and it gave me this calmness and peace to go through life in a really productive way.

If you could spend the day with one person, who would you choose and why? My wife. She’s pretty awesome.

Who is your favorite musical artist? When I was young, and still to this day, I’ve been deeply influenced by The Grateful Dead.

What is your favorite food? I’m vegetarian, and I love to eat out at Kolam.

What is the greatest piece of advice you have ever been given? “Do what you say you are going to do.”

What is your proudest accomplishment? Getting to where I am here, which is a good place.