I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, a city where practicing catch and release was not to sustain the fishery but to avoid taking fish for food from a polluted river. This put the topic of conservation in the back of my head since I was young. During college, the idea of conservation affected me directly when a truck overturned and dumped a foreign substance into the river I fished the most.

I attended college in Western North Carolina where I spent most of my time in the Pisgah National Forest fishing the Laurel River and Davidson River. I also enjoyed hiking trail like the Art Lobb Trail and Hawksbill Mountain. This is where I earned a B.S. in Accounting and Economics from Mars Hill University. Even though I graduated with a degree that is not usually associated with the outdoors, I wanted to find a way to combine that degree and my passion for the outdoors.

After the last trip to Montana, I decided to move out here once I graduated from college. Since my move to Missoula, I have spent a lot of time in the Lolo National Forest and the Bitterroot National Forest fishing and hiking.