I was born in the small town of Noblesville, Indiana. My mother was a stay-at-home mom and my father was in the military, so we traveled around quiet a bit. I followed in Dad’s footsteps, serving in the military twice.
For as long as I can remember, I have had a camera in hand. My subjects, well let’s just say that I really didn’t care what they were, instead focusing on the angle where I could get the shot was more important to me.
I gave my summer camp counselors quite a scare one night, when I went missing. After a frantic search they saw flashes through the trees and knew it was me. They found me sitting in a tree a few feet from a raccoon with my Kodak Brownie in hand.
I fell in love with black and white photography in high school, where I was on the yearbook and newspaper staff.
After high school, I enlisted as a Photo/Layout Specialist in the Army. I worked in a Topography Engineer Unit, where I learned prepress skills. I spent 6 years on active duty traveled a lot and was stationed in Germany in the late 1980’s, worked as a photographer for my battalion.
I spent another 6 years in the Army as an active reservist in Indianapolis. I attended college at Indiana and Purdue University of Indianapolis (IUPUI) double majoring in architectural drafting and photography, and minored in history. In 1996 I discharged from the reserves and moved to Ft. Myers Florida. I worked as Director of Prepress, in a publishing company and later ran a prepress department in a commercial printing company, in Ft. Myers Beach,
I loved building things in my off time and had 17-years of volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity. With these skills and the ability to work with my hands to create and design things, I started a home improvement business, named Inventive Creations, LLC. After 9/11, I had felt a strong need to get back in the military again but did not re-enlist into active duty status until 2009. After deploying, I hung my military career up for the last time.
I got my degree in Wind Energy and became a blade technician. While hanging out on wind turbine blades I started shooting pictures of the beautiful scenery. After getting that photography bug back, I left my job in wind and started school again. This time finally studying what I have always loved—photography, at The Art Institute of Colorado!