I graduated from the Pingree School in South Hamilton, Massachusetts in 1980, and received my B.S. in Motion Picture Production from the  Rochester Institute of Technology in 1986. That year I won the Hollywood Golden Scissors award for film editing and was nominated for an "Eddie" award by the American Cinema Editors. But Hollywood wasn't for me, so I joined the US Navy in 1988, earning my gold wings as a Naval Aviator at NAS Whiting flying the T34C Mentor and the TH-57 Jet Ranger. During the Gulf War, I piloted the SH-3H Sea King helicopter on 38 direct combat support missions from the deck of CVN-71, the USS Theodore Roosevelt. I later flew in the early stages of the Bosnian conflict off the deck of CV-60, the USS Saratoga. Currently, I am a police officer, serving the small town of Edgartown on the island of Martha's Vineyard, seven miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. I am an Airport Commissioner for Edgartown's Katama Airport, a Captain in the Civil Air Patrol, and also head the island's Air Search & Rescue Team.