What’s Your Life Story?

BuyLowSellLower

Self explanatory… can be as long/ short as you'd like. 

I was born in Ohio while my dad was Commanding Officer of the Miami University NROTC unit. We lived on Bishop Street on campus. 

After that, we moved to Panama as my Dad was stationed at Ft. Clayton as Inspector General to South America (O-6). I lived in Panama for three years. We were near the Panama Canal and also went to the beach to play quite often. I learned to play tennis in Panama. I went to kindergarten in Panama.

Then my family moved to Charleston, SC and I had to do kindergarten again for some reason. I did K-8 in Catholic school. I got into snowboarding and surfing in middle school. I learned how to surf in San Diego and my first surfboard was a 6’6” Sharp Eye. I learned to snowboard at Breckenridge and Copper Mountain and was hooked. I had one 30min lesson and was on black diamonds the next day.

Then junior year of HS, I won a boardercross series in snowboarding, and qualified for nationals at Waterville Valley, NH. It happened to be the same weekend as prom, so I had to tell my date I couldn’t go. 

Then at the end of junior year of HS, I was so into snowboarding and surfing, that I moved to my sister’s house in San Diego (Encinitas) and did my senior year at La Costa Canyon HS. I had a season pass for snowboarding at a place on Bear Mountain called Snow Summit. I had a blast that year.

Then, I felt really motivated to join the military in a Spec Ops group. I interviewed with recruiters in every branch. USAF Combat Control was my first pick. I thought about the SEALs too - my brother is a Navy SEAL. But, the USAF CCT group receives more training than SEALs and I thought they went on cooler missions too, plus CCTs have more combat time than any other branch, so I thought that was the way for me.

I started training my ass off before boot camp and got through the first phase of training in TX. We started with about 110 people, and then by the second phase in Biloxi, MS (Air Traffic Control School), we only had about 8 people left. Most of these people were from other branches of the military who transferred to the Air Force for this program. We had a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, Marine Force Recon, Navy SWCC, and a Marine Drill Instructor, who was my team lead. 

I went so far in training, but failed two tests in Air Traffic Control school and was sent back to TX. I had the option of waiting 2 years to try out again for CCT, or I could take an Honorable Discharge and get out as an E-3. I got out of the Air Force and a few months later went to Military School to begin my college journey.

The first year of military school is challenging for most as the adjustment to military life and strict discipline is tough for many. But, I just got out of spec ops training in one of the most challenging pipelines in all of spec ops (CCT had a higher attrition rate than SEALs when I was in), so military school wasn’t too bad. I thrived in military school and my grades were pretty good. 

When I was in military college, I thought about going back in the military as an officer and was in talks with the Navy to possibly go to BUD/S. I had to get a couple of waivers, but eventually got cleared for service. The option to go back in the military was there, I just had to keep my grades up as BUD/S Officer slots are extremely competitive. 

My major at the time was Business Administration. I got through the first year of military school and at the end of the year was offered rank for sophomore year. I took on a Spanish minor as well sophomore year. Early sophomore year, I decided to make the minor a major and travel to Spain to study abroad for six months.

Spain was incredible! I didn’t have much of a culture shock and absolutely loved the food there. Also the program was about 70% girls, so that was nice coming from a school that was 95% guys. Had lots of crazy times on this trip and I brought my mountain bike with me, so I’d just ride my bike to class. I even rode down to Alicante from Valencia and did some other biking north east of Valencia. 

I came back to military school junior year and was again selected for cadet rank as a sword bearer. I had such a good time studying abroad that I wanted to go again to China the following summer. I added an East Asian Studies minor on top of my Business and Spanish majors against the advice of my advisor who said it would be too many classes to take, but I did fine. 

China was crazy. My school paid for all the expenses including tuition, airfare, and food. I just had to pay for beer (Honors Program benefits). It was a big adjustment for me. The program was out of Beijing, but I visited other cities like Shanghai, Putuoshan, Shidu, Taishan, and Suzhou. I hit up the clubs in Beijing almost every night (Gongti - Mix and Vics). I liked Propaganda and Lush as well. 

I came back from China to start senior year and was considering 4 paths:

a) Navy SEAL

b) Fulbright in China

c) Management Consulting 

d) Investment Banking 

Unfortunately, my career center somewhat misled me as to IB applications and the process and I didn’t know the path of internship to FT, so was applying to IBs without any internship. At the time there was no WSO, so I was on my own mainly reading Vault guides and applying to the Vault top 50 IBs and Consultancies. 

I didn’t get the Fulbright to China and had maybe 5-6 IB interviews in NYC and Charlotte, but didn’t get in. I got a pretty good offer in Management Consulting at a T2 firm and then decided to take it and decided not to go back in the military.

I was placed in DC my first year of management consulting. I wanted the civilian side, but with my military background, I was placed on Department of Defense projects. My first role was Financial Manager overseeing about $20 million per year. It was good experience, but I didn’t really like the area and decided to move to NYC, but still work for the same company.

Moving to NYC was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. NYC was a blast. I initially moved in with two French chicks in UES which was in walking distance of my office in midtown. But, my friends and I were wanting to get a sick pad in the East Village. 

Two friends from college and another dude including me got a sick ‘true’ 4 Bedroom on 6th and B. This whole year was insane. MASSIVE PARTIES. We had a roof deck as well and one party I invited hundreds of people and nearly everyone showed up. My neighbor above with another true 4BR opened up and we had people on the roof deck as well. Good times.

Then two of the guys had to move out so my other roommate and I decided to interview exclusively girls to fill the two spots in the East Village pad. I posted an ad to Craigslist and posted pictures and our Facebook profiles and we had about 60-70 email responses, all girls. We asked to include a picture or social media and we only interviewed the hottest chicks.

2 girls made the final cut. One blonde British chick who worked for a media company and a 20 year old girl who was a FIT student. 

This year was awesome as well. My roommate and I weren’t supposed to hook up with the roommates, but I ended up hooking up with the FIT girl and we became an item. This girl’s mom was a PE recruiter and she talked about placing me in PE if I wanted to at some point. 

I eventually wanted to get out of management consulting and was thinking of starting my own business. My ex-girlfriend’s mom said that if my business didn’t workout, she could just get me a job in PE. Seemed like a pretty good plan to me. So I quit my corporate job to start an art design and financial design company. But, around the same time my ex-girlfriend and I broke up, and her Mom ghosted me and didn’t get me the PE job. If I stayed with her daughter, I probably would have gotten the hook up or at least an interview.

I lived another year in NYC and tried to get my business off the ground, but I was incredibly bad at sales. Then my HS crush happened to call me during some tough times and we became a couple. I thought she was marriage material and moved back down south to be with her. I was still interviewing in NYC, but living in the south, so was in NYC once every 1-2 months. 

Then I finally got my dream interview in NYC in the position I wanted with light hours and extremely high pay. I interviewed in NYC and got the verbal offer and thought I was set. But, then I had this offer rescinded and I about lost my mind. I was devastated. 

I decided to leave the country and clear my mind. I joined a group of my Church in the snow covered forests of Canada. It was about 200 people, many living in log cabins. We would wake up, pray, go to breakfast and pray, and pray at tea times, dinner, and would go to mass every evening together. There were members of the community there and also guests. I was a guest. 

We each had different roles for work. The girls were assigned cleaning, laundry, and cooking. The guys were assigned physical work like chopping wood. The most fit guys get assigned to “the bush” and were called “The Bush Crew,” and the jobs were Lumberjack and for 6 weeks, carrying maple sap to the evaporator aka “The Sugar Shack.” I was selected to The Bush Crew. 

At first I was a little nervous using a chain saw all day as a Lumberjack. I got used to it though and we wore saw proof outfits, so if it slipped and hit our leg, the chain should stop. I was burning a ton of calories every day and eating a lot, but would get sweaty even when it was cold and we could only shower once per week per community rules to uphold poverty, but the Bush Crew could shower every night if needed, but it was looked down upon so I didn’t shower but once per week. 

Maple Sap season is a great time and it is nice to put the chainsaws down and pick up the buckets. This community had thousands of maple sap taps across the city and we would jump in a truck and fill up barrels from various areas. When we were at the sugar shack, we didn’t need to drive and some of the trees auto fed into the sugar shack tank. But, most trees had buckets on them and we had to pick up the sap.

The year I was there, we picked up 16,000 gallons of sap, which when boiled equals 400 gallons of maple syrup. (40:1 ratio). The community is always very happy with the Bush Crew as everyone loooooveeesss maple syrup on everything including on cheese curds, so the Bush Crew are the heroes who get the Maple Syrup. I received many thanks from people just randomly walking around. 

The head of the Bush Crew was a French-Canadian priest named Father Louis. He was a real character and grew up with a Sugar Shack. Every day before starting work, he would light a candle to a picture of St. Matthew, the patron saint of the Sugar Shack, and pray. After doing this for a week or so, I asked “Fr. Louis, why do we pray to St. Matthew?” He said because we let the trees live on our land and like St. Matthew, we charge them a tax. And that tax is maple sap. Hahaha Fr. Louis, what a guy.

We didn’t watch TV, except on movie night or special news events, which was rare. So most of the time in downtime (which wasn’t often), we would play board games or poker. I didn’t know poker before coming here, so was taught the game by two seminarians and a Catholic priest. 

I started getting good at poker and started mopping the floor with people. A group of guys and some girls would always play poker and it was awesome. The seminarians told me “don’t go back home and start playing online and at the casinos.”

So I went home and started playing online and at the casinos. Haha. It was inevitable. I thought I could make a career out of it so decided to try to move up the ranks in poker.  I didn’t know it at the time, but overall I was a horrible player. I was a winning player, which held me back initially in many ways as I thought what I was doing was right. For the first six months I was on fire. I went to Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, FL and cashed at my first live event. I spent about a year playing for money and then began to question my life. I wondered if all I was doing was chasing money for the sake of money. 

I went on a long drive to Louisiana for the event of my friend becoming a Deacon in the Catholic Church. I looked at long strides of road and began to question my life. I thought am I really helping mankind playing poker? Like my friend becoming a Deacon, I thought maybe I too could do something meaningful.

So I decided to do research in Neuroscience. I initially was thinking of doing an MD/PhD and needed one year of research at a hospital. I also didn’t have some prereqs, and I personally emailed about 10 MD/PhD Deans, of the programs I was interested in to ascertain if I had a strong app and if some prerequisites could be waived. The MD/PhD is an incredibly difficult program to get into and it is also free, but it lasts 8 years. 

I received little feedback from most deans of the MD/PhD programs, mostly yes or no answers. But, the Stanford Dean wrote me a long response about my path and saw I was in the military and said his father was in it and he thanked me for my service and wrote about the necessity of an MD, but no real need for a PhD. He said anybody can do research, you don’t need a PhD. 

As I progressed in neuroscience research, I did understand what the Stanford Dean was saying. After all, I was doing research with just a bachelors, and I didn’t even have a life science degree. My neuroscientist suggested I take some neuroscience classes, so I took two 700 level courses: ‘Neuroscience Entrepreneurism,” and “The Neuroimaging of Neurological and Neurodevelopmental Disorders.”

We were doing Neuroimaging and I was analyzing fMRI data in Excel. At this time my Mom was recently diagnosed with dementia and I wanted to do research a little closer to finding a cure for Alzheimer’s and Dementia. So I transferred to a hospital literally across the street doing research in Alzheimer’s and Dementia. It was biotech clinical trials. It was more hands on, but I personally wasn’t involved in finding ‘a cure.’ It was more processing information in general. 

After 8 months in hospital research, I wanted to get back into making better money, so joined the executive team of an auto group, analyzing $60 million in inventory. I wasn’t there for a long time and also my mom’s dementia was getting bad, so I ended up leaving this role to help out with family.

For the next few years, my mom’s dementia progressed to the point that my dad and I couldn’t take care of her needs and so she is in a full care facility now.

I’m still helping out and visiting her often, but also want a FT position to keep me busy and would prefer to work in Private Equity. A couple months ago I reached out to a PE contact (the owner of the company) and interviewed and was given a verbal offer. He knows I’m taking care of my mom still sometimes so is offering a flexible role. They are getting more funding in September, so I start then. Most of the company is out of Chicago, but both the MD and I live in the same city. He says he only goes there 2x per year. He went to military college too.

The End