I was born on December 30, 1974, in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and graduated from Northwestern High School. From a very early age, I remember wanting to be a firefighter. Even as a child playing peewee football, we played our games at the park next to Rock Hill fire station 2. Seeing the firemen standing at the fence watching us, then running to the station when their bell rang, and the firetruck leaving with the lights and sirens, just reinforced what I already knew: I wanted to be one of them.

             After high school, I became a volunteer firefighter and took every class I could. To achieve my goal of becoming a career firefighter, I decided to attend EMT school. While there, I realized I didn’t just want the certification; I wanted real-world EMT experience, so I started volunteering as an EMT. In my early days as a volunteer, I was fortunate to be surrounded by exceptional people who were dedicated to firefighting, emergency medical services, and technical rescue. The men and women I admired and respected the most were passionate, compassionate, and committed to educating others.

             In 1997, I left my full-time job as a pressman to start working as an emergency room technician and was still volunteering as a firefighter and EMT. I also went back to school and obtained my EMT-I intermediate.  In February 1999, I was hired by the City of Rock Hill Fire Department and transferred from full-time in the ER to part-time EMS as an EMT-I. Starting as a volunteer, then as a career firefighter and part-time EMT-I, I took every class the South Carolina Fire Academy offered, as well as every medical class I could. I bugged every paramedic partner I had after every call, wanting to know why they treated the patient one way or another, so that I could learn as much as possible.

            In early 2000, I became an SCFA instructor and quickly became an adjunct instructor teaching for the fire academy, and in 2001, I became one of the core instructors in the Rock Hill fire recruit program.

I was quickly promoted from firefighter 1 to firefighter 2 in 2001, then to driver engineer in 2004. Even though I was part-time at Piedmont, I was a full-time employee, but was listed as part-time. For almost two decades, I would work 24 hours at the firehouse, 24 hours at EMS, and then either 12 hours at EMS or teach. In 2009, I attended paramedic school and became a National Registered Paramedic, and in 2011, I became a Critical Care-certified paramedic. In 2016, I became the first SC firefighter authorized to teach the Alive at 25 program for the National Safety Council and began working part-time as an instructor for the Southeastern Chapter of the National Safety Council.

In 2006, I was named Firefighter of the Year for the City of Rock Hill. In 2016, I was named Instructor of the Year for the Southeastern Chapter of the National Safety Council. In 2024, I was named the country's instructor of the year for “Alive at 25” by the National Safety Council. In 2025, became trained as a Mental Health First Aider through NAMI.