My fitness journey really began when I was just 14 years old, and my friend, Chris Covert, brought a ‘FLEX’ Muscle Mag to school. I’ll never forget seeing Dorian Yates, Shawn Ray, Flex Wheeler, and Lee Priest for the first time! I had never seen muscles like that before in my life, but I knew I wanted to have them!

You see, I was the runt growing up! I was the smallest and shortest of all my friends and teammates on our sport’s teams. When I saw Lee Priest, who stood 5’4”, flexing his monstrous muscles across the pages of ‘FLEX’, I believed that if he could do it, so could I!

The great thing about bodybuilding is it’s all you! Nobody can workout for you! Nobody can eat your meals for you, or do your cardio for you! If you don’t practice your posing, when your onstage, it’s going to show! But when you’re disciplined and fully committed and do everything that’s necessary to win, you have no regrets, and, most of the time, you win!

After graduating high school, I was like dang, what’s next? I’d already had some horrible labor jobs in my life, including baling hay, that I knew I didn’t want to ever do again. I ended up going to college at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, but before I did, I got my first personal training position at a Victory Fitness Center, in Columbus, Ohio!

Since then, I have had the amazing and extreme honor of working with some of the greatest trainers, coaches, health enthusiasts, and mentors from all over the country as I moved from Ohio to Florida, to L.A., to Vegas, to North Carolina, back home to Ohio. Too many to name, but you all know who you are!

I have been a professional fitness trainer now for 22 years! I’ve been competing in bodybuilding since I was 23! I’m currently 40! I just turned Pro this year, and I’d like to compete again soon! I love this sport/lifestyle because you get what you give!