I grew up on a farm where I was working hard since early childhood. Once I graduated high school I went directly to college and quickly found myself bored with continuing school. While in college I was working at a general contractor which provided valuable life lessons and to value hard work (60+ hours a week) but felt that it was not the path to a rewarding life. Thereafter I moved on to working at Wal-Mart simply because it provided an income and was closer to my college. At some point I thought “What am I doing?”, I am going to college in which I despise and am failing at, I’m working at Wal-Mart making little of nothing and my life doesn’t feel rewarding. Within 2 weeks I was on my way to Ft. Jackson for basic training!

Solution Engineer

April 2021

I am very new to VSO but the experience has been great out of the gates! My journey to VSO was a fairly long one in which I don’t recall exactly how it started. I believe I applied for a Cloud Architect position on one of the VSO contracts but that did not work out due to contractual issues. Along the way Mike and Mark seemed to continue seeking my place in VSO with some other offers that did not quite work out. It was this seeming desire to bring me on board along with the corporate mission, values and ethics that had me hooked on working with VSO. One day the contact came that VSO had a position for me…that is where it began!

I spent a year at Camp Humphreys in the 501st Military Intelligence Brigade. This assignment offered a very diverse and rewarding experience while working directly with ROK soldiers and being the support of the eyes and ears of South Korean operations. After Korea I was assigned to Headquarters Army at the Pentagon. I spent over 3 years supporting the Pentagon Telecommunications Center aka “the Army’s nerve center”. This was a very rewarding assignment as I had direct communication with high-level Army and other Govt. officials including the Joint Chiefs of Staff

I am married to my lovely wife Celena and we have two children (both boys) Jaxon(6) and Layne(1). I enjoy the outdoors to include hunting, fishing, 4 wheelers, hiking, etc. I have a love for old cars, drag racing and have a 1970 Road Runner. A little about myself that is usually unassuming, I was a 13-time Virginia State Champion boxer (Golden Gloves, Silver Gloves and Junior Olympics), regional champion and ranked 8th in the Nation. I am also a trained mixed martial artist to include Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Muay Thai Kickboxing.