Dr. James Lark, former national chairman of the Libertarian Party will be visiting our area today and would like to meet with members of the Tidewater Libertarian Party and Ron Paul supporters. Jim has been a friend of Con. Ron Paul for over 20 years and will provide an informal and personal perspective of the man attempting to win the presidential nomination. The meeting is tonight at 7pm at Smokey Bones Restaurant (4590 Virginia Beach Boulevard – adjacent to Pembroke Mall).
The biography of Dr. Lark is below the fold.
James W. Lark, III currently serves as Assistant to the Athletics Director for Special Projects, adjunct professor in the Department of Systems and Information Engineering, and visiting lecturer in the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Virginia. He is a director of the Financial Engineering Research Group at U.Va. Prior to the 2003-2004 academic year he served as assistant professor in the Department of Systems and Information Engineering and as adjunct professor in the McIntire School of Commerce at U.Va. He received a B.S. in Mathematics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Va. Tech), and received a Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia.
Dr. Lark has served as visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Public Choice at Virginia Tech. He was an Earhart Foundation Visiting Fellow at the Center for Research in Government Policy and Business in the Graduate School of Management at the University of Rochester. He has also served as a visiting scholar in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Department of Mathematics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is the author of publications in mathematics, operations research, and artificial intelligence. His solution procedure for finite-horizon partially observed Markov decision processes is now known in the literature as the “Lark algorithm” (or “Lark filtering algorithm”).
Dr. Lark has been a member of the Libertarian Party since 1984. He currently serves as a regional representative on the Libertarian National Committee and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Libertarian National Congressional Committee. He served as the chairman of the Libertarian Party during the 2000-2002 term. He served as an at-large member of the LNC during the 1998-2000 term and as a regional representative during the 2004-2006 term. He was a member of the Libertarian Party’s Platform Committee in 1991 and 1998, and a member of the Bylaws Committee at the 2000 convention. He is the recipient of the 2004 Samuel Adams award, given at national LP conventions to the LP member deemed the most effective activist.
He currently serves as the Local Affiliate Parties Committee chairman and the campus coordinator for the Libertarian Party of Virginia, and serves as the chairman of the Ninth Congressional District Committee He is the secretary of the Jefferson Area Libertarians (Charlottesville, Virginia). He has previously served as vice-chairman and secretary of the LPVa.
Dr. Lark currently serves as advisor to The Liberty Coalition and its constituent organizations at the University of Virginia. He founded several of the Coalition organizations while a graduate student at the University of Virginia. He also serves as national campus coordinator for the Libertarian Party, and advises college and high school libertarians throughout the country on promoting libertarian ideas on campus. He has conducted several campus organizing tours on behalf of the LP. He has lectured and conducted workshops on campus organizing at many state Libertarian Party conventions, and at the Libertarian Party national conventions in 1987, 1989, 1991, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006. He serves as a member of the Libertarian Leadership School faculty, and served as a member of the Libertarian Party’s “Success ‘97” and “Success ‘99” Leadership Seminar faculty.
Dr. Lark is a member of the Board of Directors of the Advocates for Self-Government, the Board of Directors of the International Society for Individual Liberty, and the Academic Board of Advisors for the Institute for Health Freedom in Washington, D.C.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Lark. He is a fine fellow.
Ditto. He was a guest at my wedding. We were in grad school together.
Dr. Lark, Tom Cantrell and I taped a segment on the Libertarian Party for Joel Rubin’s “On the Record” program airing Sunday 11/25 this morning.
Jim Lark has been a great contributor of ideas and solutions to the Virginia political landscape for decades and he has been a great mentor to Virginians who seek political office, especially those under the Libertarian banner. I am glad he is coming out in support of the Paulistinians! RON PAUL is a wonderful candidate who I think many on both sides of the political divide will happily agree with.
Locally, I hope that Jim Lark and his band of Libertines will throw their support behind handsome First District candidate, Lucky Narain. For Lucky to have a shot at getting twenty per cent, he will need help from all corners, and the endorsement from the Libertarians will give LUCKY NARAIN a big boost.
If Lucky gets his share of Whitman’s base, then Phil Forgit will be the next Congressman in the First District and not, “Deliverance Rob.”