I am from Muskegon Heights, Michigan. In 2014, I graduated from Grand Haven High School. In 2015, I graduated from Michigan’s Institute of Aviation and Technology where I studied energy technology with a focus in wind and gas turbines. After working in the field for a few months in South Dakota, I realized it just wasn’t for me. In 2016, I joined the Marine Corps where I served as a Combat Engineer under 3rd Marine Division Headquarters in Hawaii. I moved to Virginia Beach in 2020 after I was honorably discharged and was called up by a local telecom company. As a telecom technician, some of my daily tasks would be installing and troubleshooting commercial or residential sized data systems from the communications closet to the workstation. The coolest part of being a telecom or data technician would be traveling across the country to work security clearance jobs with the DOJ and DOD. While traveling, I was able to rub shoulders with IT/cybersecurity personnel and they inspired to me to dive into computer science and cybersecurity. At the moment, I still work locally 3 days per week as a telecom tech while learning about cybersecurity.