About Me

Hello All, I have been given the unique opportunity and honored privilege to share with all of you my trip to British Columbia. But first a little about me. I grew up just outside of Manistee in the town of Stronach on the banks of the Little Manistee River. I attended Madison elementary, Manistee High school and graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in Resource Development with an emphasis in fisheries. I live in the Udell Hills area by the 9-mile bridge on the Little Manistee. I have a wife and two children that attend Madison Elementary (Adam) and Jefferson Elementary (Avery) I currently work for the Michigan Department of Resource and Environment. For 12 years I worked the ports of Manistee and Ludington collecting Great Lakes research data, a dream job for a fish head such as myself. Anglers come in from their trip and you ask them a few questions and examine their catch. I would look for fin clips, signs of disease, and tagged fish.  All the time having the breath taking views of Lake Michigan as my office, For the past 5 years I now monitor that same program for the west side of the lower peninsula.
       In school I was not what you would call a stellar student. I was always thinking of what next instead of the task at hand and had some trouble staying focused,  unitil sixth grade when a teacher named Don Demuse came into my life. He set up a science fair of sorts and I was able to dissect a shark. The more I learned the more I wanted  to know,  it became an addiction to knowledge. While I still struggled some times at school I had had my first real passionate thirst to learn more about something. At MSU  I was able to focus myself on fisheries and learning all I could about fish, their environment, life cycles, ecosystems and how to study and protect them.