This East Coast born Motivational Speaker, Program Director, Writer, Actor, Poet, Addictions & HIV Counselor spent the first 18 years of his life, raised by “great” parents on the West Side of the Bronx, New York. While attending catholic school (1968-1974) he was exposed to traveling, music, sports, drama, art, and modeling. He was third team all-city in Basketball, voted student representative, and received several Art scholarship offer’s while a sophomore at Sacred Heart Heart High School, Yonkers NY. In 1975 he left New York to attended Benedict College and the University of South Carolina in Columbia SC. Lettering in Football & Basketball respectively It was there his interest in writing, began the take shape(writing articles for the school newspaper on sports, entertainment and politics). After college and a brief stint with the Seattle Seahawks, he joined the Navy in 1980. It was in San Diego, CA while working as a Navy Operating Room Technician, he began to write poetry. He eventually became a Naval Aviation Medicine Specialist Westpac. Meaning he was attached to Marine Corp Squadrions traveling exclusively between Iwakuni Japan, Okinawa, Hawaii, Guam. After his discharge from active duty in 1991 he returned to school(North Carolina Central University) to pursue a Degree in Pre-Law, while working as a Correctional Officer in Raleigh, NC. In 1996 he relocated to Washington DC and became a Certified Addiction Counselor. That same year he worked at Lorton Correctional Facility as a Case Manager. In1998 he was named Assistant Director of the Women’s Safe House( A residential-program for mothers in recovery with children). program for mothers in recovery with children). In 2000 he became the Coordinator of Taylor Manors Adolescents Drug Treatment Program in Ellicott City, MD. In 2001 he also renewed his passion for writing, by publishing his first book of poetry “Shades of Ebony-Epigrams of my life”. In 2002 he received his Masters in Criminal Justice-specializing in Juvenile Services. He later became the Program Director for Vanguard Services, Phoenix Program in Arlington VA. In 2008 he became the Director of The RSAT(Residential Substance Abuse Treatment) program at the Baltimore County Detention Center, in Towson, MD. In 2009 he decided to pursue his writing and entrepreneurial aspirations full time, eventually relocating to Phoenix Arizona and creating his “Believe & Achieve Foundation” and the “Black Felt Pen, Inc”. In 2010 he officiall