Born in Montana, I grew up and attended school in Ohio and Illinois. I served three years active duty in the U.S. Army beginning in 1969 and was assigned to the 213th Assault Support Helicopter Company as pilot and aircraft commander of a CH-47C Chinook in Vietnam from July 1970 to July 1971.

I began working for Universities Research Association as a technician at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in 1973 where I helped to build and commission the Tevatron, the world's highest-energy particle accelerator. I married my wife Linda "Duncan" in 1988 and we moved to Texas in 1989 to help build the Superconducting Super Collider where I was the electronics laboratory manager for the front-end group of the Accelerator Controls Department. My last responsibilities there included organizing and publishing Controls Department documentation on the World Wide Web.

When the Super Collider closed in 1993 I began working as a computer programming and system administration consultant for various clients, eventually taking a permanent position with Price Waterhouse as an IT Consultant in the petroleum industry until they downsized and sold the division. Unable to compete with younger candidates for a tech job for a couple of years, and the mortgage company demanding to be paid, I took a job at Vought Aircraft Industries/Triumph Aerostructures as an aircraft assembler usually building Boeing 747 and 767 horizontal stabilizers for as long as I could stand it until finally retiring in 2014.

I joined the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1990 and have served as a Post 3894 officer the majority of the time since and as the Texas District 30 Commander for three non-consecutive terms.