Hello and thank you checking out my bio page. Hit me up the next time in the Canyon for some conversation if something strikes you as what you see below.

I get asked all the time if Jim and I are together. The answer is No we are not a couple. We are just business partners and I am a single man.

Some of my background history of my life includes:

I grew up as a young child of 3 children to my parents below in a Chicago suburb called Westmont where I attended school thru the 6th grade. For my 7th grade, I moved to rural SW Wisconsin and dairy farmed with my father on 300 acres. I learned to care for animals, grow corn and alfalfa. I was able to have some very unique experiences there and that set my life in a direction of living the "rural" life over city life.

I started work at the young age 13 during the summer working for a program for farm kids. This gave me some great experiences and I found that with a bunch of hard work, I could get some things that wanted. I graduated HS at age 17 and had an opportunity to travel and lived in Mexico for 3 months as an exchange student. Upon coming home from Mexico I moved off the farm to live with my sister in Rockford, IL. There I worked as a dishwasher for an ice cream parlor for the year to save money because I knew I was going off to college in a year.. but worked that year at the parlor until I turned 18 years old. I was then off to Ripon College.. it is a small college in East Central part of the state of Wisconsin. I took the courses I was interested in and soon found that I had two majors, one in Anthropology and the other in Spanish. I also got a minor in theatre. I worked the summers for the City of Ripon, Wisconsin in the Parks Department. I started as a general maintenance guy and moved up to being lead mower. 40 hours a week on a posh riding mower that had stereo, cruise control, turn signals and seat belt with a roll bar. I worked for my education, I paid for it and took out several loans to get by. It did not come cheap and in the process i am proud of my educational accomplishments.

During my college years I took my junior year and studied abroad in Costa Rica for the 2 semesters. What an eye opener.. Spanish was the primary language and all my classes and social life was in Spanish. It did not take long for me to perfect my language in everyday life and gave me a great appreciation for Latin cultures.

I came home from Costa Rica and finished my senior year at Ripon College. That was 25+ years ago! Since then, I worked in my first year 5 part time jobs at the same time, temp service, tutoring Spanish speakers in class, taught ESL in the evenings, janitor at an apartment complex and bus driver. Those jobs panned out and I began a regular full time job as Vocational Rehabilitation Evaluator and worked in migrant camps in and around Rockford, IL and covered 9 counties. I stayed there for a number of years and then had an opportunity to work under a contract for the state of Illinois as a community organizer for youth programs. I managed 12 counties and worked with community leaders to implement youth programs. This was a fun job but it took me out of using my languages. I applied and was then hired as a caseworker for children in placement for the State of Illinois (Spanish speaker position). I worked in that capacity until I switched over to the investigative unit and began the rest of my career working on child abuse and neglect cases until I left that employment to follow my dream of opening a campground, and Cactus Canyon Campground was born. My road to get here was a long road, but with great efforts, great strengths, passion and enthusiasm. I am pleased with my life and my employment here at the Canyon.

I Love you Mom, May you Rest in Peace

June 18th, 1936 - November 26th, 2004

March 16, 2001

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June 19th, 2015