“You are never too old to set another goal, or to dream a new dream.” – C. S. Lewis

“What is your purpose?”  That is the phrase that started this adventure.  Though I have been thinking about this question on different levels for years, it has not been until recently that I have really invested time to wrestle for the answer.

First thing to do was determine my priorities.  What is the most important things for me?  There are a lot of values that I hold dear but, at my heart are: Faith, Family, Service, Growth, and Adventure.

Why do you do what you do?

“It’s about being a great dragon slayer as opposed to eliminating the dragons. The dragons give you job security. The dragons give you the obstacles that shape your character; that paves the way for a life of significance. So do something that scares the hell out of you and pushes you out of your comfort zone. Something significant will happen on the other side.” – Richard Rierson

Some Life Details

I was raised in southern Africa and spent a good portion of my like exploring the savanna and biking across town.  We did make occasional trips to Colorado to visit family.  Due to a transfer, I finished my highschool years in Elkhart, IN.

Because the apple often does not fall far from the tree, I studied Electrical Engineering and Mathematics at Cedarville University (http://www.cedarville.edu/).  During this time, I was “woo-ing” my now wife in a long distance relationship.

After obtaining two degrees (BSEE and BA), Joyce and I were married and our adventure together started.  A few months later we ended up in the Slovak Republic.  Though the stay was relatively short, it was definitely a time of learning and our love of travel and serving grew.  Soon after, we  returned to my “home”.  Here, not only was I able to share with my bride where I grew up, but I was able manage a team and start my leadership journey.  My personal leadership responsibilities started to grow as well with the addition of our first child.

We returned to the US.  Here I made a shift in careers and started work in developing combustion processes and power generation systems as co-founder at VAST Power Systems, Inc (http://vastpowersystems.com).  This was a very laid back environment and there was a lot of virtual office working.  This gave us the opportunity, as a growing family, to volunteer overseas a few times.

Do to oil price fluctuation, I eventually started a more traditional job working as a product engineer primarily with mechanical systems.  However, if it had wires or mechanically moved in more than one direction, it ended up on my desk.  Here I learned to work with a very diverse team and work with customers to develop custom steel products for the RV and specialty vehicle industry.  This is where my leadership growth became focused.

Currently, I am working in electronics and control systems and I have the opportunity to encourage and influence team members from other departments as I interact with them.  However, I am now in a position where I invest a lot of time in personal growth and studying leadership ideas and strategy.