Born in Waterville, and raised in Saco, Maine. Only child. My father taught history and directed athletics at Deering High School in Portland.
The summer I finished high school, my family bought Garside's, a seasonal ice cream stand on the Saco River. I made the ice cream, wrote the recipes, hired and trained the crews, painted the building and mowed the grass. I kept doing that on weekends from Boston for years, to help my mother. She passed and I sold it in 2018.
Thornton Academy, Phillips Exeter, then Colby, where I studied French and sang tenor with the Colby 8. Then France: two years in Avignon running a school's term abroad, which I rebuilt from scratch; summers directing immersion programs for Dartmouth's Rassias program and Washington University; a stretch in Caen, Normandy.
Grad school in St. Louis, where I taught French at the Alliance Française and performed in rock musicals on the side. A biomedical-diagnostics company hired me to teach its engineers French, translate all kinds of business and technical materials, then moved me to its global headquarters in Lyon for corporate communications and company-wide English training. Six years in France all told. People still take me for French.
Boston since, specifically the South End. Software, banking, state government, pharma, in that order, mostly teaching people to use complicated systems and writing the documents that keep regulated work honest, and compliant. A few years running my own commercial-lending brokerage. Now a partner and executive producer at an animation studio with a feature in production, and an equity partner in an advanced infrastructure venture.
Also: a finalist on The Next MJ Millionaire, “Big Mike’s” business-competition reality show on Amazon Prime (Mike Straumietis, being the 6′8″ Founder and President of Advanced Nutrients). Fourth of sixteen, pitching ‘chill’ ice cream. SAG-AFTRA eligible. Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar at Exeter. Formally practiced and always terrible at: tennis, piano, skiing, and windsurfing. Still a damn good singer. Maine accent available on request.