I was born in the 'Deep South' to Midwestern parents who quickly moved to the more shallow Southside of Washington DC where I was free to waste the vast potential of my youth on cable television until that final climatic year when I graduated with honors from Oxon Hill Senior High School. With the prospect of soon becoming an independent adult, I traded in my soccer cleats for a 40' Offshore Racing Yacht at the US Coast Guard Academy (yeah ... much better). Four years later I graduated with a BS in Ocean Engineering and 5 years of indentured servitude. In a misguided attempt to get back in touch with my southern roots, I swapped the sailboat for an assignment to an icebreaker headed to Antarctica. After a summer in the 'Deep Freeze,' I realized that I had taken this southern kick way too far; so I grabbed a few Buffet tunes and drifted back to the East Coast and our nation's 'War on Drugs.' One year later, I jumped ship to drive a brand new helicopter. When I finally thawed out from my excursion to the homeland of the Linux mascot, I started looking for a 'kooler' climate once again (preferably some place where I could ditch the body armor I was now accustom to wearing). I was headed North ... to Alaska ... where I flew Search and Rescue missions. Suddenly, most of my sea stories began with "It was a dark and stormy winter's night ..." and it just wasn't fun any more. Returning to my wife's hometown on the North Shore of Boston, I started looking for a mid-life career change. Something with a desk!