What have you been up to since you graduated from Redwood?
Ha! I went to CoM for a semester before I joined the Marines in February 1988. I trained as an infantry machine gunner and assigned to the 2nd Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. I was stationed first in Camp Pendleton, CA and then to 29 Palms, CA after a 6-month deployment to Okinawa, Korea and the Philippines.
I got married to my first wife in July, 1990, and a few weeks later got deployed to Saudi Arabia to participated in operation Desert Shield, which became Desert Storm in January 1991. I was in combat for about 4 days and was uninjured when my vehicle detonated a land mine.
On returning home, I served the rest of my 4-year enlistment, divorced my wife and returned home to Belvedere for a few weeks before moving to San Francisco in 1992. There, I worked at various odd jobs including bookkeeping, retail sales and cab driving while I completed college and met my second and present wife Katherine--we married in August of 1998.
After graduating from SFSU with an Urban Studies degree, I went to get my JD at New College of California. After 2 Bar exam attempts I tried motorcycle and car sales and other ventures for a few years before I was hired by Motorcycle.com to write and edit content, based on my writing prowess (mostly in the comments section of the site) and many years of experience as a motorcycle enthusiast and racer.
After 2 years at Motorcycle.com I was poached by Cycle World magazine to be its on;ine editor. I was laid off as the Great Recession hit and became a freelance editor, writer and motorcycle instructor. In 2009, after moving to Oakland, I became involved with a local free motorcycle pubilcation. After a few years I purchased it with a business partner.
In 2011, my son Isaac was born--my greatest achievement by far--and we purchased a small apartment in Oakland's CLeveland Heights neighborhood. After selling my share of the magazine in 2014 I supplemented my writing income by working as a rideshare driver. My experience in that field led to writing jobs for rideshare and car websites, including commercial and PR writing. My wife is a librarian in San Francisco and we're fortunate in our financial security. If only everyone could share that!
