I live in Austin, Texas and am married to Deborah. We have two children, Victoria, 15 and Sophie, 13.
I was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and grew up in Barre, Vermont and Erie, Pennsylvania. I have also lived in Barcelona, Spain; New York City; Ithaca, New York; Richardson (Dallas), Texas; Wichita Falls, Texas; Monroe, Connecticut, Tupper Lake, New York and, of course, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. My mother is Spanish and was born in Peralta de Alcofea, Huesca. Her native language is Catalán. My father was from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and spoke Spanish. My wife, Deborah, is a fourth generation Texan. The kids are everything that preceded them.
I received a Bachelors' Degree from Gannon University in Spanish Language and Literature and hold a Masters' Degree from Cornell University in Healthcare Administration. I am primarily a self-taught photographer with the exception of 2 summer workshops at the Maine Media Workshops and 1 summer working there as a teaching assistant.
I have held an interesting variety of jobs, and without forcing my resume upon you, can at least give you an idea of where I've been, professionally. During my college years I worked summers as a landscaper (great tan) and winters as a ski instructor (expert skier). I spent a year at the Universitat de Barcelona and after graduating college worked for General Electric as a technical translator in locomotive operations (yes, choo choo trains). When that contract ended, I spent a summer working as a teaching assistant ($50/week) at the Maine Media Workshops and moved to Austin when the workshops completed in September. I was in Austin 2 days and found a job with a company that manufactured Mylar balloons. They needed a salesman that could speak Spanish directly with the maquiladora factory in Guadalajara, Mexico.
After a few years I ended up at St. David's Hospital and enjoyed working there so much that I went back to get a Masters' Degree in Healthcare Administration. That business degree (ticket) allowed me to enter the world of business management and I started as an Administrator running freestanding ambulatory surgery centers. Six years later I was in Wichita Falls as CEO of a new physician-owned hospital and then went back to surgery centers as a Regional V.P. for a publicly traded company managing multiple surgery centers. I now market, sell, repair and maintain heavy construction equipment, specifically, concrete batching plants and central mixers. Too much information? It's all good, in my opinion. We're always learning.
