I was born in the early 1960s on the Saginaw Chippewa Isabella Reservation (Michigan) to a full-blood Anishinaabe father and Portuguese mother.
We moved to Northern California, where I grew up in a small town along the Sacramento River but spent almost every summer of my childhood on the reservation. One of those summers included working with the U.S. Youth Conservation Corps, which later became the foundation for my work history related to the environment and conservation.
I left high school early, obtaining a G.E.D. before enlisting in the U.S. Army; married and divorced, have two sons, two stepdaughters, eight grandchildren, and one great-grandson.
While stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky was discharged under honorable conditions before Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, but believe in Army values of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless-service, honor, integrity, and personal courage.
After the military, I joined the California Conservation Corps (CCC), attending the academy at San Andreas, before receiving California Department of Forestry (CDF) training and certification in wildland firefighting.
During my tenure with the CCC, I lived and worked at Delta Flood Center (Stockton), near Mount Shasta at Siskiyou Center (Yreka), in addition to southern California at Camarillo Center (Ojai). My last assignments while living in barracks on Treasure Island Naval Base (San Francisco), included helping build inner-city parks in both SF and Oakland; additional firefighter training with CDF at Mount Diablo; and assisting with (eco) restoration efforts at Baker Beach, and (structural) at Oakland Zoo.
Next, I landed a job as a firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service in Sequoia National Park, on an all-Native hotshot crew. My most-challenging fire being mop-up in Southern California’s Golden Trout Wilderness, where we were flown-in by Chinook and smaller helicopters, before hiking down cliffs. Exciting, strenuous work, and a chance to see part of the landscape few get to.
Following the forest service, I worked a few years in Yosemite National Park, spending summers at Glacier Point, winters in Curry Village, Yosemite Village, and Yosemite Lodge. Also had the opportunity to work occasionally at the park’s Badger Pass ski lodge, and historic Ahwahnee Hotel.
I’ve held other jobs including security at the California Department of Criminal Justice Planning; plus purchasing assistant for Native employment non-profit, California Indian Manpower Consortium.
Since leaving California, I’ve lived and worked in Reno, Nevada, at a men’s club (I was the guy at the door who decided if you were going to be allowed in or not); spent five years in Sin City (living in a condo less than a mile from the world-famous Strip); before returning to Michigan for a few years, working front desk and later security, at my tribe’s Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort.
Several years ago, I returned to the west, residing in Phoenix, Arizona briefly before returning to Las Vegas, Nevada.
More-recently, I was part of the volunteer team at Alan Bible Visitor Center, where my primary duties for National Park Service were to provide the public with information on Lake Mead Recreation Area.