My Story (in reverse chronological order)

After having lived in Atlanta for 11 years, I finally decided in May of 1999 to move to Houston TX. Not a place that I had ever dreamed of living. But I was recruited to come here for a job that was just right and a salary that was just right. Plus I like Houston. Pretty difficult decision though, especially since I had never moved further than across town as an adult. I moved several times as a kid, but that was always initiated by my parents. I imagined that I would move around as an adult, but it just didn't happen for quite a while. Atlanta is almost tied as the place I've lived the longest, Ogden Utah beats it out by about a year. From birth to age 12 and-a-half I was there.

I received my Master of Public Health degree from Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health, I chose the Epidemiology track, but I have an abiding interest in Behavioral Science and Computer Science. When I was in the midst of my public health training I wanted to research infectious diseases in minority communities or be appointed Surgeon General or Secretary of Health and Human Services or climb the ranks of the World Health Organization. Since I finished my coursework, I have worked in information systems in a hospital environment. I have fallen in love with IS work and hope to leverage my public health training to advance my IS career in the healthcare environment.

I received my B.S. in Biology from Emory in 1992, where I was also a Dance Minor. I found myself (and Came Out) during college, and found many wonderful friends and mentors at the same time.

I graduated from Croughton American High School in 1988, a school that no longer exists. Croughton was an Air Force listening station located in a sheeping community in Oxfordshire, England. I lived in a little tourist village called Bourton-on-the-Water, which is said to be the Venice of the Cotswolds. I worked many hours as a waiter in the Cotswold Tea Room, and as a all-purpose boy in an art gallery. I rode my bicycle everywhere I went, except when I was riding horses.

During my Junior High years I attended the upper school of the American School of Madrid (official page, unofficial alumni page). I lived in a middle class Madrileno suburb called Pozuelo Estacion. I learned Spanish very quickly by the immersion method, much of which is now forgotten. Did you know that the symbol of Madrid is a bear climbing a strawberry tree?

I was born in Ogden, Utah on December 11, 1970. I lived in Ogden and a suburb, Washington Terrace, until I was twelve years old. I went to Roosevelt Elementary. Highlights of elementary school were winning the spelling bee in third grade, and being on the student council, something I didn't repeat until my twenty-fourth year.

When I was a child (2 to 10 years old) I used to spend large parts of my summers on my Grandpa Don and Grandma Helen's farm in southeast Utah. My grandma taught me how to paint with oils, and the one painting I ever completed placed in the county show. The show officials managed to lose my painting, but I do still have many that my grandmother painted. My grandpa had his own large machine company. He drove Caterpillars, backhoes, and dumptrucks. Sometimes he would take me to work with him and let me work the levers for the backhoe. I'm glad I never lost any fingers from it the way he did! My summers there were very memorable. I almost drowned once. I saw a man with an earring for the first time (little did I know how many I would eventually have). I learned how to dry fruit, and convinced my grandma to peel hundreds of grapes for me to eat. I learned how to milk a cow, and get the cream from fresh milk. I learned I was allergic to cats. I saw lots of dinosaur fossils being excavated at the nearby Dinosaur National Monument. I also learned the many uses of horse linament and udder salve.