About Me

Welcome to the About Me section, which will do just that, talk about me and try to give you some idea of who I am.  This is not a list of my credentials and measurements, for that you want the "Resume/Stats" section. This is a place where I will try to give you an idea of who I am as a person. Everyone has a story, so here is part of mine:

My Story

I didn't always want to be an actor.

My youth didn't include thoughts of being on the big screen.  In fact, when I was young I decided I wanted to be a computer programmer (I was just that cool).  I'm still not sure where that idea came from, but I pursued it right into college at Virginia Tech.  After my first year of sitting in front of a computer all day, I decided that it wasn't for me.  I transferred into the engineering department and still managed to graduate on time in 4 years, while working nearly full-time at a local bar to help finance my education.  From there I took an engineering job in Washington DC, which at first was new and interesting, but after a while it just became repetitive and monotonous.  I needed something more fulfulling.

I started finding hobbies, one of which was community theatre.  Theatre gave me something in my life that I had never really had before that point, a sense of purpose.  Here I had found a never ending source of challenges that would require unending growth and learning.

Through that work I met some fellow actors, who had moved to DC from LA; they were extremely influential in the early days of developing my craft.  They helped me understand what it meant to be an actor, more specifically: a storyteller.  The purpose of acting being the telling of a story, and being the tool to help deliver a message.  For the first time in my life I had found something truly meaningful (to me), and I felt that I was finally on the right career path.

My friends ultimately decided to move back to LA, and I knew it was time for me to move on from my 9 to 5 engineering job, so I moved to LA with them.  Leaving my five year career behind, I embarked on the new adventure of becoming a professional actor.  But I didn't leave behind the drive I used to become an engineer; I kept my professionalism, determination, and dedication.

So here I am, several years later, living and working in the greater Los Angeles area.  I'm continuing to work on bettering my craft, and loving every day of it.  Don't get me wrong, it is a lot of difficult work; at times this is an extremely frustrating business, but I wouldn't trade it for any other job in the world.

What Do I Do Outside of Acting?

You've got to have a life, something outside of acting, something important to do besides working on your career. For one it keeps you sane, and for another it gives you experiences to draw on for your work. Who wants to only live as a character for their entire life?

First and foremost: I love going to the beach. Sitting by the ocean, enjoying the peace and tranquility, and doing nothing except watching the waves move in and out. (That is where this website got its theme.) Whenever the business gets to me, kicks me around, I just go off to the beach for a little bit, and recover. My family used to spend most of our weekends running down to the beaches of North Carolina, on the Outer Banks. Now that I live in LA, it is nice to be in a place where I can drive to a beach within half an hour, rather than the five it took us growing up.

One of the other loves in my life is motorcycles and riding. When I was 15, I found my father's old 1972 Triumph Daytona 500 buried in our garage. What a find! With my father, I restored her to working condition, and I've been riding ever since. I rode the same motorcycle during my college years that my dad did when he was in college. My first year out of college, I bought a Harley Davidson, which I ride to this day.

Other things that I enjoy are outdoor adventures, dogs, and photography. Outdoor things like fishing, hunting, skiing, hiking, etc. My family loves to deep sea fish off the coast of North Carolina, and go for the "big" fish. It is truly something to catch a fish bigger than you are, or to kayak fish and catch something that drags you and your kayak around for miles.

When I grew up, there was always a dog in the house. We always had a Labrador Retriever excited to greet you when you got home. Unfortunately, the apartments I have rented in LA don't allow pets, so I have been without a dog for a while now. But one day soon I hope to move into a place where I can finally have a dog again!

After college, I was approached by a modeling agency, while I was working out at the gym. They wanted to sign me and sent me to their photographer to do some initial photos. I was intrigued by the unique combination of art and science required to produce a great photograph, rather than just a good picture. I began to study photography and have taught myself and my girlfriend some photography skills, and together we shot the main photos used on this site. I like photography because of its complexity and ability to capture the moment. It makes you look at the world in a way that you wouldn't normally. It opens your eyes to the visual wonders around us. After all that is what all great art it supposed to do, show you things that without that art you would have never seen.

My Goals

In the engineering world, I would have a mission statement something like this:

Basically what all that means is: I want to learn and grow as an actor, doing what I love, while helping a production tell their story. It is a very similar goal to what I had when working as an engineer, just the means about which I pursue it, and the environment, are different.

How Do I Work?

I like to have fun. I work hard, but I enjoy what I do. If I have learned anything in this life so far, it is that we have too little time on this earth to spend it doing something you don't like doing. You need to love what you do. But that doesn't mean you don't take it seriously; on the contrary. The more you love something the harder you work at it, and so the more reward you will find in that work.

About This Site

Remember I said I wanted to be a computer programmer at one time in my life? Well it turns out when building a website, those skills come in handy!

I took a business of acting class that suggested building a personal website, something uniquely you to help promote yourself, while letting people get to know you as a person. (Actors are a product, but that product is a person and his/her experiences.) So I read up on the internet, and I learned the tools I would need (HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, and SQL). I studied several programming languages I had never worked with before, but as all computer programming languages follow a similar logic, I picked them up fairly quickly. And here we are, my website, built and designed by me (with some help from my very lovely girlfriend, who is always worth mentioning).

I bring all this up to make one point: I needed something, I didn't know how to do it, so I researched it, learned the skills I needed, and made it happen. That's how I work. I certainly don't know it all (and it seems the more you know about acting, the more you realize how much you have to learn) but when it is needed, I'll figure it out. At the end of the day, I use all my resources to just make it work; to succeed in my endeavors.