About Me
My two goals in life are to make the world a better place and to always pursue what I love. Everything I do I do with these goals in mind. It's as simple as that.
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Defining what I love and how to make improve the world? That's a bit harder.
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Growing up I thought I was destined for Wall Street. I'm a hard worker who is good with numbers, enjoys finance and is good at discerning patterns and making assumptions. I found the field stimulating and always felt that if something else peaked my interest, with a few years of investment banking salary behind me, I could always be free to move to whatever field I fancied after I paid my dues. In high school I took business elective courses, enrolled in the then ranked #1 business school in the country at Villanova, and was well on my merry way to a career in corporate finance. At this time, I was still very much learning what it was I loved in life, and I felt that making the world a better place was something I could wait until I had money to attend to.
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Fortunately, my experiences in college forced me to assess what truly mattered to me and how I wanted to live my life. The first big step in my maturation came when I became involved in NOVAdance (see Volunteer Work page). I joined the freshmen involvement program and quickly became rapt with supporting the families and kids fighting cancer we sponsored. I progressively applied to more and more involved positions and, as a senior, was a director on the executive board directly in charge of NOVAdance's largest program (over 650 people) and the very program I initially joined. Including enough memories to last a lifetime, my involvement with NOVAdance taught me much about myself, both as a professional and as an individual. Professionally, I learned that I loved to work with people and collaborate, tackle multiple tasks at once, and create projects that make people smile. As an individual, I noticed my studies quickly became second fiddle to my responsibilities in NOVAdance and our B+ Heroes. There was no homework that was as important as the work we all did to fight pediatric cancer, and I came to realize that I need more from life than just a grade or paycheck.
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The second step was the definitive recognition of a long-standing love and passion of mine: Nature. As a kid I probably spent more awake hours outside than in, and the woods behind my house was always my favorite place. I loved animals and was fascinated by the very existence of life. Fast forward to my teenage years and that passion became buried under the typical growing pains of a teenager. But my sophomore summer, rather than work, I decided to spend time volunteering as a chance to see the world and give back a bit before I began the Wall Street life the next summer. I went to the western coast of Costa Rica to a small station in tiny Ostional and quickly regained my passion for nature. I was in the middle of the Costa Rican rain forest, next to a black sand beach with minimal human development. I saw more monkeys and turtles than people and got to do some of the coolest work I ever hope to do monitoring and protecting sea turtles. As I regained my love for nature, I was also shocked to see the extent of the damage humanity inflicts on nature. In a remote part of Costa Rica, trash and debris regularly washed ashore from around the world from tires to microplastics as small as a grain of sand. I helped remove illegal fishhooks from nesting turtles and witnessed the strain changing sea conditions had on them (laying fewer eggs, endangerment once prominent green and leather-back turtles, etc.) As I was welling with joy, I was also filled with a tremendous sense of dread.
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Returning to school my junior fall, I was still set on a career in finance, but I knew that corporate finance was not going to work for me. I pursued degrees in real estate and management information systems to augment my financial acumen (unfortunately the cross-college logistics of an environmental science major were not feasible, nor did I realize what my gut was telling me until far to late). I new for sure I wanted to work on tangible products that would make people happy, but I wasn't sure what or how. As I pursued my new studies, I also continued my work with NOVAdance and began to explore the world. I was fortunate to be able to travel as much as I did, and I quickly realized that as much as I enjoyed the London's and Parises of the world, I was much more fond of the French Alps and Rocky Mountains.
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I came to realize the true power of finance in my studies and its ability to make small projects financially viable. I found a passion for real estate and the creation of new developments. I began to better understand systems and project management while becoming versed in emerging technologies. I cultivated my love for nature and began pursuing greener habits. I started paying more attention to energy use and conservation, aligned my personal portfolio with my interests and beliefs. I grew out my hair, and then my beard, both of which were objective mistakes (and I have since grown out my hair again). I wanted to have a corporate platform but a ranchers lifestyle. I wanted a career connected to nature, but I wanted a greater impact than a park ranger.
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Eventually I realized that I could protect that which I loved AND improve the world through green energy. There are a million ways to fight for our natural world, but that which I find most pressing is by limiting humanities carbon footprint and limiting our impact on environments close to home and across the world. The renewable resources to power the world cleanly are abundant in such quality as to make our continued use and investment in fossil fuels absurd. I want to fuel that transition, and I think smart financing has a huge role to play at all levels of renewable energy development and distribution.
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A sustainable future is the only future where we can hope to prosper and live in harmony with nature. I have dedicated myself to creating this brighter future and solve the problems that people don't see everyday. As I continue my career in renewable energy and look to have a greater impact on the world, I have found I am in the right space, surrounded by the right people, to truly change the world.
