Bio

Hello everybody,

I suppose that, if you are reading this and are truly interested in who I am and what I’m doing here at Rocklin Academy Gateway, I had better start at the beginning.

I’m a southern California boy, born and raised in the incredibly dense San Fernando Valley (I believe we hit over a million people a few years ago...wow), just outside of Los Angeles. I was a total geek and a total jock from middle school on, even to this day. I loved the classroom, and I loved the field. Although I truly love competition of any kind and just generally being physical, football was and has always been my true love.

I became a teacher because I wanted to coach football, but I continued to teach, even after I had stopped coaching, because I realized how much I love learning and intelligent discussion. I have always been a curious person, and I have always loved talking with people. It doesn’t really matter too much what the subject is. I love it all. That is why I am always trying to get my students talking in my class, always trying to challenge them to think more deeply and to argue, which I also love to do! That being said, I had to choose a subject like I had to choose a sport. My high school English teacher, Ms. Graber, really inspired me, and so I followed after her. By the time I was twenty-one, I graduated cum laude from California State University, Northridge, with a B.A. in English and started coaching and teaching immediately after, and I have been at it ever since for the last twenty-three years.

But how did I get all the way up here in the north, you might ask--at Winterfell, for my Game of Thrones fans? My wife, Jen, took me up to Tahoe when I was in my early-to-mid twenties, right around the time when we were married. We drove in under the cover of night to a campground (what I would later come to know as D.L. Bliss--so aptly named), and I couldn’t see anything. She said, “I know you can’t see it yet, but just wait ‘til morning.” And, boy, was she right! When my eyes opened the next day, let’s just say my eyes were opened. I fell in love immediately, and really, ever since then, I have wanted to move up here, here where I feel like I was meant to be, which my wife, my daughter, and I did about four years ago just after COVID hit.

So here I am, my third year here at Rocklin Academy Gateway as an 8th-grade history teacher. It took decades, multiple attempts, a lot of careful saving and planning, a pandemic, and a lucky bit of real estate maneuvering; but we are here, and we are grateful and excited to be part of the Rocklin family and community. After two years here, I can say with certainty that these are the best students from the best families that I have ever had; and I'm looking forward to working with my next "congregation" (which is what you call a group of gators).

Later, Gators! See you in the “swamps”! 

Be ready to open those big mouths and to speak. It’s the number one reason to come to school, as far as I’m concerned.