From a young age, I have been fortunate enough to have had a variety of unique experiences that have taken me all over the world and deeply influenced the person I am today. As an impressionable teenager, I remember going behind the Iron Curtain, in what was then communist East Berlin, and seeing a way of life I had only read about in books that sobered me. I worked on a fishing boat in Alaska with those I first thought were rough but later called friends, once as an outdoor tour guide with passengers from all over the world, and later with refugees who didn’t know if their families were still alive. I have lived in small towns, the heart of New York City, different countries, and even on a small island in the Pacific, and associated with people from more than 100 countries. Each of these experiences, and more, have contributed to the importance I feel today in looking beyond the numbers and never forgetting the people whose lives are impacted by the work I do.

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When I’m not working, I love to travel in search of “extreme beauty,” am a life-long baseball fan, couldn’t have a better wife and family, am horrible at drawing, want to read more than I do, and hope to one day be able to grow tomatoes and flowers year round.