Where did you serve and what did you do?

Desert Storm/Desert Shield Gulf of Oman/Kuwait, also served in the San Francisco Earthquake 1989. I was a Navy Hospital Corpsman trained and operating in Emergency Medicine and later in Aviation Medicine.

How are you Still Serving?

I continue my service through my daily job working for the federal government. I work as a subject matter expert in my role as an Aviation Safety Inspector. On a daily basis I am tasked with making commercial air operations safer. In my personal life, I am a Catechist for the Catholic church.

Why do you do it?

As I lifelong Catholic, I believe in God and in my faith, it has gotten me through some very difficult times when I came back and continues to do so on a daily basis. At my church I teach teenagers what being Catholic means, how the sacraments we receive such as baptism, first communion and confirmation help them to gain strength in their faith and come closer to a relationship with God. Every student starts the program as a typical teenager, some are shy and some are trying to be cool. After they realize I care about them and their church cares about them they open up. I describe the transformation like this, when they first come to class they are roses, but all you may get from them is the thorns, but after a time they open up and you get to see the blossomed flower. In my professional life working for the US government, it is critically important that each citizen cherishes the life we have in this country and the freedoms we are granted by living here. So I take it serious when it comes to making sure that we are also safe and in aviation safety is a full time job because flying is inherently filled with risks.