Joined the United States Marine Corps in 1983. After Boot Camp, was assigned to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA to study Arabic. This is where I met and married my wife, a member of the United States Air Force, studying Arabic as well. I separated from the Marine Corps in 1990, while working at the National Security Agency. I was then employed by the NSA as a civilian. Upon my wife separating from the Air Force, we relocated to her home town in Washington State. I joined the Benton County Sheriff’s Office as a deputy sheriff in the fall of 1992. I was selected as Washington State’s Law Enforcement Officer of the Year in 2003, by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. I retired after 23 years of service in 2015. During my time with the Sheriff’s Office, I worked with all departments but mostly as a deputy on Patrol, as a School Resource Officer in the Finley School District, and as a Public Information Officer (representing the Sheriff’s Office with the local media.) I also served as a Lieutenant overseeing the civil and clerical divisions. While serving my community as a deputy sheriff, I volunteered with the Young Marines program, helping to start the first Young Marines unit in the area in 1995. I assisted in starting a second unit in 1998. That unit, the Columbia River Young Marines earned the title of National Young Marine Unit of the Year in 2005. With knowledge gleaned from working as a deputy sheriff (and supplemented by an assignment as a school resource officer working in a public high school,) I began teaching adults in the Young Marines program about current drug trends nationwide, as the Drug Demand Reduction Resource Officer. Upon retiring from the Sheriff’s Office, I was employed by the Young Marines program as the first Deputy Director, West Coast Operations. My area of operations was west of Ohio, to include outside of CONUS in the Pacific. In addition to my role as a Deputy Director, I maintained the role of the Drug Demand Reduction Resource Officer. I assisted in developing the Young Marines’ Closing the Gate on Drugs initiative and continued to produce classes, lesson plans and information publications for the organization. Under my leadership, the Young Marines earned the Department of Defense’s Fulcrum Shield Award eleven times. The only military affiliated youth organization to do so more than twice. I live Washington State, still married to the young Air Force lady I met in Monterey, CA, over 37 years ago. We have two children, a daughter and a son. Our son, a college graduate, served in the Air Force as an Arab Linguist for six years, and is now back in college studying computer animation. Our daughter is an emergency dispatcher for our local first responders. I also have a Bachelor’s Degree from Excelsior College, New York. I am a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion and the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association.