The Beginning

My identical twin brother and I were born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 19, 1969 at the University of Pennsylvania hospital. I was raised in West Philadelphia near the Mann Music Center with my older sister, my brother and mother. I attended junior high school at the J.R. Masterman school one of premier preparatory schools in the Philadelphia area.
                                  
High School and College

I entered the 10th grade at Central High School in 1984.  In 1987, I graduated in the 246th graduating class with Barnwell Honors. Before I graduated I was fortunate enough to win a White-Williams scholarship. It is a non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging, supporting, and rewarding high achievement by Philadelphia public high school students from low-income families. Late in my senior year of high school I applied to six fine institutions and was fortunate to receive admission to all of them. For the record the schools were Carnegie-Mellon, Drexel, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, Villanova and the University of Delaware. I elected to accept a full scholarship to pursue Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware via the Resources to Ensure Successful Engineers (RISE) program. The RISE program is one of the nation's earliest and most successful minority engineering programs. The mission of this program is to recruit and encourage academically prepared students who, as a group, are underrepresented in engineering. The prime objective of RISE is to assist these students in attaining an engineering degree.

I attended the University of Delaware from 1987 -1993. Even though in my estimation I was not the best student I could have been but I have a lot of fond memories and am proud to have made through with a degree from one of the finest engineering schools in America.


After College/U.S. Navy

During the early nineties the economy was in recession and I had a hard time finding employment in the Philadelphia area. After reading an advertisement in the newspaper for a nuclear engineer I decided to join the U.S. Navy. Once I signed up at MEPS in Philadelphia I was off to boot camp in Orlando, Florida. After I survived boot camp Florida I attended training in Florida which lasted for 18 months and later for six months in Charleston, South Carolina.                         
                                        
Once I completed training I was assigned to the U.S.S. Topeka which was a nuclear powered fast attack submarine based out of San Diego but later changed home ports to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. While in Hawaii I was part of three pacific deployments which took me to Alaska, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Guam and Canada. During my time on board Topeka I qualified in submarines allowing myself to become part of a special fraternity of sailors. There are not many who chose this path. I am proud to be one of them. 

While in Hawaii I met Akiko Murakami at the Friday’s on Kuhio Avenue in Waikiki. Life aboard a nuclear submarine is very stressful. Many guys cannot handle the pressure. She helped get through it with my mind intact. I realized I had a “keeper” after the time I at spent at sea and still being faithful to me. We were married in early 1999 and later that year our son, Drew was born at the Tripler Hospital. After I left Navy in the year 2000 I moved to California. A year later, in 2001 our second child, a daughter named Claire was born. I currently reside in Livermore, California.