I was born in Iowa. By the time I finished elementary school I had lived in five places. My parents split up early. My dad and I lived in a three-bedroom trailer in Mississippi with no central heat. In fourth grade, I was cooking dinner and keeping track of a hundred-dollar grocery budget.
That is not a hardship story. That is just what happened. And what it built in me: independence, resourcefulness, a refusal to wait for someone else to fix things. I have been drawing on it my entire life.
I joined the Navy at 17. Not because I had a plan. A recruiter came to my high school and I signed up. Boot camp came naturally. Stay quiet. Show up early. Do what needs to be done without being asked. I had been practicing those things my whole life. I scored perfect marks across my graduating class. The only one who did. Then in technical school, they made me class leader.
It was the first time in my life I felt seen.
Twenty-two years later, I am at the highest enlisted leadership position available. I have led sailors through deployments, through hard seasons, through the kind of pressure that reveals who a person actually is. And through all of it, the thing I keep coming back to is the moment when something shifts in someone's face. When a young man who didn't think he had anything to offer starts to see himself differently. That moment has been the best part of every role I have ever held.
Some numbers, for what they're worth: 22 years mentoring and developing people inside the military. 12 years coaching youth baseball. 4 years coaching basketball. None of that is a credential. It is just how long I have been doing this work in different rooms with different names on the door.
I lost my brother in 2007. Motorcycle accident. He was placed on life support and never came off it. I held his hand when he died. He lived fast and dangerous and made choices that cost him everything. I carry him as fuel, not weight. He showed me every road not to take. That is not a comfortable thing to say. But it is true.
I lost my dad a few years later to cancer. He chose to go home and do hospice. I became his caretaker for those last days. I held his hand when he died too.
I say that not for sympathy. Those moments are part of what I bring to this work. I know what it costs to carry loss without letting it own you. I know what it looks like to keep showing up anyway.
Stoic philosophy gave me language for things I had already been living. Marcus Aurelius writing about doing the work without the applause. Epictetus on freedom as an inside job. Seneca on time being the one thing you cannot get back. I did not find new ideas in those books. I found a framework for what had already been built in me. Built without my permission, and without a guide.
That is the gap I am trying to close.
The Humble Forge exists because of one question I keep returning to: what if someone had handed me that framework at 18?
The young man I am trying to reach is frustrated. Maybe angry. Maybe just quietly confused. He feels like life is happening to him instead of for him and he cannot name why. He is not broken. He is untaught. And the distance between where he is and who he could be is not a talent gap. It is a framework gap.
I have spent twenty-two years building that framework under pressure. I have coached sailors, led teams, and watched young men find their footing in conditions that would make most people fold. Now I am building something around that work intentionally.
Gina has been next to me through most of it. We have six boys between us. I coach 16U competitive travel baseball. Life is full and good and hard in the right ways.
I am not coming in flashy. I have something real to say. If you are ready to hear it, I will be here.