After graduation from North High, I enlisted in the Army and served in the 82nd Airborne Division. I then returned to Nebraska and, 7 years later, graduated from UNL Law School. I worked as a trial attorney (3 years), as an attorney for the Nebraska legislature (6 years), as an agency director for the Governor (4 years), and as a lawyer for the Lincoln Telephone Company (9 years). Following a corporate merger, I worked as a commercial boat captain and professional diver in Key West (2 years) before joining the US Foreign Service, where I have served as a diplomat for 10 years.

I have served in Haiti, New Zealand, Haiti (a second time, during the 2010 earthquake) and now in Jamaica, where I work as the Embassy's director of U.S. counter-narcotics, law enforcement, and justice reform programs in Jamaica.

In 2008, I married Ingrid, my beautiful Haitian creole wife, who I met in Haiti.