About Me

In my sophomore year of college I enrolled in a scuba diving leadership course that forever changed my life. While becoming an Assistant Instructor at the University of Florida’s Academic Diving Program, I delivered my first speech ever to 200 students in a dauntingly large auditorium. I failed miserably! But, I was inspired. I rose to the challenge of delivering high quality and impactful speeches. I borrowed $1,000 from my mom to become a scuba instructor and she happily agreed stating, “It’s always something you can fall back on.” Little did we know that diving would be my first career and the vehicle through which I became a professional speaker.

At merely 20 years old, I was already a multi-agency scuba instructor, writing articles for national training agencies, and speaking at industry conferences and conventions. I went on to become the Managing Director of the University of Florida Academic Diving Program and grew it to be the largest university dive program in the world.

Immediately upon graduating college, I was hired as an intern at the YMCA Scuba Program’s national headquarters. I quickly advanced from intern, to consultant, to Assistant Director, to National Director within a two-year period. During my tenure there I merged the YMCA’s corporate core values with the demanding standards of the nation’s oldest diving program. Before I even fully conceptualized culture shaping, I was doing it – integrating a company’s values into their product/service delivery.

During my tenure with the YMCA, I became a judge for freediving (breath-hold diving) competitions and co-founded the United States Freediving Team. And in 2002 I used my culture shaping strategies as Team Captian to bring home a gold medal at the Pacific Cup of Freediving.

Along the way, I became a law enforcement public safety diver with the Broward Sheriff’s Office and a police officer with Gainesville Police Department. By combining my law enforcement training with my diving industry background, I became a forensic diving accident investigator (the CSI of the underwater world). This provided me the opportunity to consult and present on shaping cultures of safety and risk management.

In 2012 a unique opportunity to provide private scuba training to the president of Nova Southeastern University brought me back to my academic diving roots as I was recruited to establish the Nova Southeastern University Academic Diving Program. Today, I continue to direct the NSU Academic Diving Program where we develop industry-leading divers and dive professionals. I also write and produce two podcasts, a website, an app and online courses dedicated to diving pro’s.

It is this robust background along with being young, motivated and passionate that repeadedly identified me as a “change agent”. But in reality I was doing more than causing change, in fact, I was a “culture shaper”. I had a passion for identifying solid values of organizations and I developed a knack for implementing those values into everyday norms in the workplace. This is the essence of culture shaping. And culture shaping is my unique skill set, honed from high risk activities where both education and safety are essential.

Let me share my strategies with you, your employees, and your organization so you can shape the workplace culture you want to be known for!

Finally, my life is shaped by many blessings. I love God, my amazing bride (Heather), and my awesome kids (Nicole and Christian). I enjoy 80’s rock, good beer, and Jeep life. The fam and I can be found in our pool or in the ocean off Fort Lauderdale, Florida where we call home.