I was born in Connecticut and raised on St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands with my twin brother Sean. We spent our first two years aboard a 40-foot sailboat named Yahoo - on which we were not allowed to wear shoes - and commuted to school on St. Thomas via dinghy, Jeep, ferry boat, and bus. Eventually we moved ashore and joined St. John's renowned Little League team, thus becoming the league's two white kids. I spent much of my childhood in the water, surfing and sailing and swimming and fishing.
I attended my last three years of high school at Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut and played football and baseball for Middlebury College in Vermont, earning a psychology degree in 2001. After a year as a counter-terrorism analyst in Washington, D.C., I headed west, stopping for a fateful respite in Colorado's upper Blue River valley, where I still reside.
Since quitting my job as a newspaper sports editor in 2007, I have joined a 40-day expedition to pioneer skiing in Western Nepal, investigated a new way to predict weather, completed (and reported on) two weeklong races through Colorado's backcountry, and profiled subjects ranging from the first black player in NHL history (Boston Globe Magazine cover story) to an 86-year-old woman who became an unlikely icon in the Himalayan climbing world. Although much of my reporting focuses on people and sports, I also do investigative pieces and stories focusing on how we deal with psychological trauma.
In my own life, childhood adventures in the ocean have been replaced for now by skiing, mountain biking, and trail running. I work part time as a hutmaster for a system of backcountry cabins, and I've served on open space and trails commissions as well as the Summit Huts Association board. I live with my family in Breckenridge, Colorado.
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