I live in rural Boone County on a small homestead with my wife Beverly and our daughters Natalie, Josephine, and Sadie. We raise animals and grow a lot of our own food. I’m also a beekeeper, maintaining hives on our property since 2014. I was born in 1976 and grew up in Vermillion County, graduating from Indiana University with a Bachelor of Science degree in legal studies and a minor in political science.
After 9/11 I answered President George W. Bush’s call to serve and enlisted in the U.S. Army Special Forces, serving as a Special Forces Senior Medical Sergeant. I did two combat tours as a Green Beret and was awarded a Bronze Star for meritorious service as a member of the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan.

I worked in remote areas in Afghanistan as part of a small team of Special Forces operators. Our job was to train and fight alongside Afghans to defend their own communities, working as force multipliers using superior morale, training, and tactics.

I am a product of the best military training in the world and am grateful for that training, but I saw the limits of U.S. power and the danger when that power was used carelessly, such as when a native Afghan man our team had paid to help us set up a base was killed for money by his own countrymen.

I also saw that despite the billions of dollars spent every year on training and equipment, the U.S. military couldn’t forge a democratic nation from a tribal society. Most obvious looking back was the lack of focus on a specific and achievable mission, leading to a senseless loss of life and a huge expense to our nation. I see this repeated, again and again with our troops deployed in foreign conflicts that have nothing to do with us.
After returning to Indiana in 2012, I developed commercial property with a close friend in Clinton County, in the town of Frankfort. From 2012 to 2021 I worked as a medical device representative, the last seven years with Intuitive Surgical, maker of the daVinci surgical robot system. My territory stretched from the VA hospital in Indianapolis west to Champaign, Illinois, covering much of the 4th Congressional District.

In 2017 I opened a Jimmy John’s franchise as the anchor store at the commercial property in Frankfort, and I remain the franchise owner to this day, often going in on weekdays to help the crew deliver lunch orders.

In Boone County where we live, my wife and I homeschool our three daughters and in my free time, I read history and practice Jiu Jitsu. I’m also a children’s Jiu Jitsu trainer, teaching a class that my daughters attend at a studio near our home. We’re also members of Lebanon Christian Church.