At the age of fourteen my spleen was ruptured during a Little League baseball game as I positioned myself under a pop fly to left field.  After a week in the hospital following emergency surgery I was sent home with a clean bill of health.  As a result of physiological changes brought about by the surgery I began to notice that I was getting ill much more frequently than before. My lifelong experience of learning about health and healing had begun. 

       As a young man, I set out for a two year assignment with the Peace Corps in Paraguay.  This short stint as a village health educator developed into a career in public health including nearly a decade of living in half a dozen countries is sub-Saharan Africa.  My time in Africa has tested the limits of my body, mind, and spirit.  Often working “alone” in remote areas far from modern healthcare I learned a unique lesson each time I suffered from malaria, dysentery, giardia, food poisoning or other ailment.  Finally after a number of years I became “wise” and began visiting African herbal healers to learn some of their knowledge.  I have since gained a couple thousand hours of formal classroom study from the Heartstone Herbal School, Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism, Blue Ridge School of Herbal Medicine, Tibetan Medicine Education Center and Jung Tao School of Classical Chinese Medicine.  In addition to my herbal studies I hold a bachelor’s degree in psychology, a doctorate degree in public health and a massage therapy license.