This work is personal — and it’s backed by the science to make it precise.

I’ve made the transition more than once. From civilian life into the military. From firefighter to Operations Captain — then deliberately back to the bottom at age 42, because a department I wanted to join didn’t accept lateral transfers and the fit still mattered more than the shortcut. I went through a second fire academy and started over. That’s not a resume footnote. It’s the clearest thing I can tell you about how I approach alignment.

Over nearly three decades in the fire service, I rose through the ranks — Firefighter, Engineer, Lieutenant, Training Captain, and Operations Captain — helped design a training program, and served simultaneously in the Air National Guard — progressing from Firefighter to Crew Chief to Assistant Chief of Training before retiring from the Guard in 2010. While working as a Driver/Operator, EMT, and Hazmat Technician, I went back to school and earned dual A.A.S. degrees in 2007, then a B.S. in Industrial & Organizational Psychology in 2019. I retired from the fire service at the beginning of 2023 and completed my Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling in 2024 — a 60-credit, CACREP-accredited program.

I/O Psychology is the science of how people fit their work — what drives performance, how organizations shape identity, and why misalignment costs so much. The Master’s adds the clinical depth to understand what’s happening beneath the surface. Together, they give me a framework most coaches simply don’t have — and a career that proves I’ve used it on myself.

When I sit with a veteran who doesn’t know who they are without the uniform, or a firefighter trying to figure out life after the department — I’m not reading from a textbook. I know what you built. I know what it costs to walk away. And I know what’s possible when you stop waiting for the right moment and start building the right fit.