Coming from a military family, learning about different cultures and adapting to new situations was paramount to my success. My family and I were constantly on the move. During my time as a soldier, I worked with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, intelligence collection and analysis, and served two deployments to Iraq and two to Afghanistan. After I left the Army, the same flexibility I used before helped when my occupation required me to travel to different states and countries as often as 10 times a month! I worked as a pilot performing test flights, teaching others to fly, and as a supervisor. This job taught me many things, but a personal lesson that money shouldn't keep me from pursuing my passions was the strongest of all. My relationship skills with peers and associates grew because of my dynamic work environment and this has helped me to empathize and understand others around me. These unique opportunities for growth contributed to my sense of self in the way of values, ethics, and philosophy.
All of these experiences helped develop me into the creative, adaptive, and thoughtful human being I am today.
My parents are both medical practitioners; my father, a doctor and my mother, a physical therapist. Their dedication to studies and service intrigued me; I wanted to be intelligent and helpful like them. We took place in community service projects and helped causes that helped people around the world. These experiences of helping others shaped my life pursuits.
In addition to their intellectual and service pursuits, my parents engaged in the arts. We visited museums and I entered a few of my paintings in competitions. Later, I developed a love of literature and began writing. Music was always playing in our home and we would talk about the symbolism, the artists' backgrounds, and the arrangements of everything from Mozart to Fleetwood Mac. Seeing things from different perspectives, like only art can make possible, helped me to empathize with others and understand myself better.
Frequently, my family would go on adventurous vacations. I learned how to sail, rock climb, scuba dive, surf, and camp on a few of these trips. My wife and I now enjoy skydiving, cycling, snow and water skiing, and rock climbing to name a couple of activities. These excursions engendered a healthy competitive spirit. Ensuring I empowered my team mates and gave all I had was usually more important than winning, in my mind. Often, my competition is with myself. If I focus on what I do and personal improvement; it’s not important to compare myself to others. I found that winning usually takes care of itself if I focus on doing my best.
Realizing I had an analytical thought process and that I also wanted to help others, pursuing a degree in quantitative economics seemed the best path. Economics shows how many aspects of the world work together. Everything from financial markets and global trade, to populations of plants and animals affected by weather and human interactions; economics answers so many of these questions! What better way to improve society for everyone. With the quantitative emphasis, my love of math and my understanding of how to make data work together has become stronger than even when I was working with intelligence analysis.
My journey to be my best self is always changing. I'm enjoying the adventure!