My Story
From coal country to community carpentry.
A story of faith, family, work, service, pressure, return, and the long effort to build systems that hold people up.
Boone County
I grew up in Boone County, West Virginia, in coal country. Fathers worked underground. Mothers held homes, schools, hospitals, churches, and communities together. I learned early that work had weight, faith had roots, and family was not something you fit in after ambition.
Before college, I worked in the mines. I loved the grit of it, the camaraderie, the physical truth of labor. But somewhere between the bench, the lunch pail, and the bologna sandwich, I understood something simple: the mines would be there. The chance to broaden my horizon might not.
Glenville State · No. 45
College and Football
Football helped open the door to college. It taught discipline, toughness, timing, trust, and the strange grace of belonging to something bigger than yourself. It was not just a sport. It was formation.
I wore No. 45 at Glenville State. These photographs hold a chapter before the Marine Corps, finance, and fatherhood—but one that helped prepare me for all three.
Training years
Strength is built under load.
An old clip from the CrossFit gym—one more season that reinforced discipline, preparation, and the habit of showing up when the work gets heavy.
Father First
Fatherhood is not one role among many. It is the role that orders the rest.
My daughters, Hailey Rose and Everley, are central to the why behind the work. They are part of the reason I care about education, financial literacy, faith, protection, legacy, and systems that make life more stable for families who are carrying more than people can see.
Enter the family layers →Service and leadership
Marine Corps
I became a Marine officer after a conversation that felt less like a recruiting meeting and more like a call to purpose. My path led into logistics and motor transport, which was not the assignment I first imagined, but it became one of the great blessings of my life.
During a 2012 deployment to Helmand Province, Afghanistan, I served with Marines whose grit, humor, courage, and discipline shaped me permanently. That season taught me that leadership is not a speech. It is the standard people feel when pressure rises.
Recognition: Marine Corps Motor Transportation Officer of the Year for 2012 — MCMTOOTY.
Read the stories of the MarinesFinancial Calling
After military service, I moved into the financial industry and learned the work from the ground up. I knocked on doors, built relationships, studied the rules, and saw the same pattern again and again: the system was easier to navigate for people who already had money, advisors, language, and access.
That frustration became a calling. Finance could not just be about products, portfolios, or performance. It had to become education, clarity, tax awareness, fiduciary judgment, and practical freedom for real households.
Reckoning and Return
A difficult season in 2024 forced me to confront the weight I was carrying and the kind of man I wanted to become. I do not treat that season as branding. I treat it as a reckoning and a return — to Christ, to fatherhood, to service, and to the responsibility of building with more humility than ego.
Follow the return through faith →Carpenter
I do not just want to build things. I want to carpenter systems that hold people up — families, schools, businesses, communities, and stories that help others find their footing.
Explore the systems being built →