I was born in Los Angeles and though having lived in Europe and trekked across the globe, I am currently living not only in the City of Angels but in the neighborhood where I grew up.  It was in Europe where I met and fell in love with Shirleen Rodrigues. We were both young, idealistic recent college graduates who were trying to save the world as Peace Corps volunteers.

I reflect back on those 27 months in Slovakia with a bit of shell- shocked fondness, having found not only my future wife, but the basis of my academic research. 

Shirleen and I were recently married on September 24, 2005, in Banff, Alberta, Canada, a place of insurmountable beauty, depth, and geologic solidity.  If there is ever a world heritage site I would recommend to visit, it would be Banff National Park. 

It is difficult to know exactly what attracted me to geography and to teaching.  I imagine it was my precocious affection for maps, airports, and views out the window of our family car as we ventured out on what my parents called “wander trips",  or perhaps it was the many dinners playing “name the state capital” with my brothers.  With a bit of nature and a dash of nurture, I quickly realized I was drawn to the globe and an experiential awareness of all its various places.  Indeed, I knew I had chosen the right field of study when I came across Yi-Fu Tuan’s conceptualization of Geography:

      “The study of how humans make the Earth their home.”

Embedded in that simple adage is a tremendous amount of potential knowledge, fascination, inspiration and subtle humanism.  I consider myself lucky to have found a field of study to help me make sense of this world and my place in it.

My first teaching assignment, ironically, wasn’t even in the classroom.  Over the course of 8 summers I worked as a water ski instructor in Lake Arrowhead, CA.  My second experience was teaching English in a post-Soviet high school while serving as a volunteer in the U.S. Peace Corps.  Through these two disparate experiences, I realized that I possess a unique ability to inspire in students a genuine “appetite for learning”. Students enjoy my teaching style, and respond to my prodding and challenges--  this is what I love most about education.  The thrill and satisfaction of seeing a young mind turn “on" and engage the world with rekindled curiosity and interest that leads, ultimately, to greater understanding.  
It was somewhat inevitable that I have continued to teach and develop a university- level pedagogy…though, I do miss those summers on the lake.