Gary is a retired lawyer, who spent the majority of his 32-year career at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. He served in a number of firm leadership roles, including Managing Partner of North America, Chair of Orrick’s Global Intellectual Property Department, and Office Leader for Orrick’s Silicon Valley Office. Gary was an intellectual property litigator, representing a wide variety of Silicon Valley technology companies, including Applied Materials, Advanced Micro Devices, Agilent and Genentech, in trade secrets and industrial espionage cases, both civil and criminal. Gary was the recipient of the California State Bar’s Wiley W. Manuel Award for Outstanding Pro Bono Service.

Today, Gary owns and operates Switzer Farm, an ocean front wedding venue in beautiful Westport, California. Gary spent four years painstakingly restoring the 1884 Victorian farmhouse and 22-acre site to exacting historical accuracy, and now enjoys sharing it with wedding couples for the biggest weekend of their lives.

Gary is a dedicated architectural preservationist, and has been a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, The Kelly House Museum of Mendocino, and the San Francisco Victorian Alliance for many years. Over the past 30+ years, he has restored four Victorians in San Francisco and Mendocino counties, each lived in by Gary and his family for a number of years. He bemoans the recent trend of “flipping” architecturally significant homes by developers, who strip out most of the historical details and replace them with stark white or mid-century modern styling, all for maximum profit. Gary is dedicated to preserving and restoring these buildings as they were originally designed.

After graduating Cornell, Gary spent a year traveling and working odd jobs across the US. He then attended Columbia Law School, graduating in 1983. More importantly, while at Columbia he met a classmate, Michiko, the fantastic woman who became his wife and life-long partner. Together they raised 3 children, Maia, Natasha and Kenzo. They currently split their time between San Francisco and Westport.