As a kid growing up, I spent many of my days after school hanging around the business my father started in his garage two years before I was born. The year I graduated from high school we moved to Oregon and I studied mechanical engineering at Oregon Tech. If you enjoy math and science, for a four-year degree engineering is hard to beat when it comes to the opportunities and pay it offers.
After graduation, I went to work for the family business, as a project engineer at first. In my late twenties, I took an assignment to do a plant start-up in the Netherlands (manufacturing, technical support, sales). Over the next three years, with a lot of help and support, we got the place set-up, hired locals and trained them, and brought the business to profitability. Three years later we moved back to Oregon, then four years I later lost both of my parents in a tragic auto accident. The family pulled together and reorganized the business and I moved into a VP role responsible for development engineering and business development in Europe.
A couple years later, the pastor resigned at the local non-denominational church we were involved in. I helped teach occasionally for a couple years as the church looked for a new pastor. I ended up resigning from the family business and offered to candidate with the church. For the next 4 years I served as the teaching pastor, with a focus on teaching the Scriptures verse by verse and building a current, authentic, relevant, loving community of believers.
At the end of the fourth year with the church, my wife of 18 years filed for divorce. Before the ink had time to dry on the settlement, she was engaged and son after married one of my best friends. A year later I married Christy. She has truly been a blessing, my best friend and as solid as a rock. The morning after we returned from our honeymoon we were met with a massive child-custody battle, not of our choosing, that pretty much consumed us the next four years. It would have been far easier to walk away, at times it was tempting, but if I didn’t stay the course, my children would have lost their dad. Last spring the court ruled in our favor and a coordinator was appointed to monitor that parenting plan was enforced, which has dramatically reduced the drama.
I’m now a full time dad. One of my youngest sons and my daughter got to go hunting with me last fall for the first time in years. My son got a Columbia whitetail buck and a cow elk. My daughter just missed getting a doe. This spring break we have plans at the coast, and this summer a trip to Lake Powell, to create some lifetime memories.
For the next phase in life, I would love to build a home with my wife (who had her own business as an interior designer), and start a business related to hunting, fishing or the outdoors.
Life is filled with twists and turns. I don’t know how people do it without a firm faith in the living God, and the confidence that He uses difficult things in our lives to mature us and shape eternal character. I've been hesitant to share my story, but if I can ever be an encouragement to any of you men, I'm here to help. Just send me a PM.
, this being her response when I told her her I need a CO Elk tag to go with my WY Elk Tag. Seems logical and fiscally responsible to me, I'm out there anyways.
