I was born in Caldwell in 1967. My family lived here in Nampa until I was about 9 months old then was moved to Anchorage , Alaska by the company my father worked for, Railway Express. We lived in Alaska for 4 years then moved back to Nampa where I attended Roosevelt Elementary, Lincoln Elementary, West and South Junior High Schools and then finally Nampa Senior High School where I graduated in 1985.

While growing up, I learned to hunt and fish, ride motorcycles and snowmobiles. I was the Idaho Soap Box Derby Champion Junior Division Champion and went back to Akron , Ohio in 1978 for the National Championship, representing Idaho . It was a great time, but looking back it seems so long ago. I participated in Boy Scouts, which is probably where I learned to be a practical joker, and still love a great practical joke to this day (both giving and receiving).

1977 was a very dark year for our family. That was the year that my cousin Steven was murdered. He was only 10 at the time, I was 9. We lived about a mile from each other, and went to the same school. I think that this event has played a great role in the shaping of my views, and I still carry some of the anger with me today. Steven and I were great friends, I even broke his fall from a horse; broke my arm, but he was OK!

After High School, I couldn't wait to leave Idaho . California was the place to be, so I loaded up my truck and moved to Beverly... Opps, wrong movie. Actually, I loaded everything I owned into my 1978 Ford Pinto station wagon, left my beloved '71 Dodge Challenger behind, and moved to Fullerton California and moved in with my aunt and uncle. I attended the Norwalk Chapter of the National Tooling and Machining Association Training Center where I started learning to be a machinist. I say started because twenty-two years later, I still am learning. After all this time, I am still amazed at how I can take a chunk of metal and turn it, mill it and make it into something useful, a tool, a part to a machine, or any number of possibilities. I can remember to this day of our instructor, Sam, telling us that there is nothing that we have today that hasn't in some way been touched by a machinist.

While in California , I met my wife Suzette, we have been married for over 18 years now and have three wonderful children today. I grew tired of California , with the expense and the crime, and a new family to care for, we moved back to the safety of Idaho in 1989. We bought a house on Canyon Hill in Caldwell and lived there until 1995. A lack of machinist jobs here in Idaho forced me to look elsewhere to try to move ahead in this world. I accepted a job for Parker-Hannifin Corp. in Ogden , Utah and we made Roy , Utah our home for the next ten years. Parker-Hannifin in the Ogden plant made commercial aircraft flight controls, so the next time you are on a plane, I may have worked on some of the flight controls on that plane. After 9-11-01 , things got bad in the aerospace industry and I was laid off from Parker. We stayed there until 2005 when we moved back to Idaho in April of 2005. I went to work for a machine shop in Meridian where I am still employed today.

My hobbies include hunting, fishing, salt water aquariums, and restoring old cars. I was a volunteer little league football coach in Utah for 4 years, and loved it. I enjoy working on our home, making minor repairs, and major changes when needed. I enjoy being a do-it-yourselfer.