I’ve had a love of the natural world for as long as I can remember. I started keeping fish when I was about 6, and I can distinctly remember a blue gourami leaping out of the lidless, 10-gallon tank I kept on top of my bedroom dresser. During my teenage years, I spent equal parts of my life in the creek behind our family home in Munroe Falls catching chubs and dace and keeping reptiles and fish inside a nascent reptile room in our basement. I turned my love into a professional career studying and managing natural resources, having worked for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources in Columbus for more than 20 years. Positions I’ve held include: coastal biological GIS specialist, wildlife research technician, botanist, researcher, and natural resources administrator. Each one provided me with incredible opportunities to spend much of my professional career in the field studying natural places across Ohio. In 2021, my wife and I moved our family to Tallmadge during the pandemic to be close to family. I began my next journey as the Curator of Living Collections of Holden Forests & Gardens, administering the living plant collections for 4 years at both the Cleveland Botanical Garden and the Holden Arboretum. This job took me to seek out plants across the southeast U.S., China, and Korea, where I collaborated with scientists and botanists to develop ways botanical gardens can better conserve wild plants for future generations. I am now a work-from-home Dad diving head-first into my love of technology, doing contract work in the field of Artificial Intelligence. My passion for Hingeback tortoises and desire to learn more about the places where they live led me to a life-long goal of having a 100+ gallon fish tank. When I happened across a great deal, I knew I had to build a tank that featured the fish of West Africa.
