My Story

Hello, Welcome to my website. I want to share a little more about myself. If you are looking from my professional bio you can click on the "About Me" link. It hosts my official bio. My current professional position is Dean of Students at University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.

After writing several pieces for the Huffington Post, I was pleased to receive so much good feedback. So I put together this site with two goals in mind: to share information with you and to provide a space for you to share back.

My story: Like many students, I started my academic career with learning difficulties. I recall my first grade teacher calling me stupid in front of all my classmates. She told me I’d never amount to anything. Nice lady, huh? Little did she know that she’d set the tone for the next 12 years of my academic life. I didn’t excel in primary or secondary school. In fact, I was either an outsider, a step behind, or in some kind of trouble most of the time. So I learned how to be an academic survivor early on.

With so much emphasis being place on my immediate academic survival, I don’t remember thinking about going to college until my senior year in high school. My grades weren’t great and I didn’t have a clue where I’d go or what I’d major in. I didn’t have much guidance either from high school counselors or my parents. I don’t think the counselors had much hope for me and my parents didn’t go to college, so their experience was limited. I did, however, recall that my uncle went to a state university in the area. So not knowing any better I decided to apply to the same university. Surprisingly, I got in. Everyone was shocked. Including me.

I had the worse time adjusting to college life. Although I was a confident survivor type guy, I soon realized that I wasn’t prepared academically or emotionally for what was ahead of me. I figured if I could make it through high school, I could swing college. It couldn't be that much different, could it? Plus, I’d be living on my own. It would be fun; there’d be lots of parties, sports and socializing. I hadn’t stopped to think about what was important to me, what my interests were, or how’d I deal with all the changes. I hadn’t research the university enough or explored alternative schools. I didn’t know how to handle the workload or my independence. It was a miserable experience, but I managed to get through the first semester.

After my first semester, I felt pressured to choose a major. Everyone else seemed to have one and I started to panic because I didn’t. I decided I would major in marketing. I don’t recall why I chose marketing, other than that my dad was in sales. It sounded like a reasonable direction, and I got positive feedback from my parents on my selection.

Things were going OK, but one day I woke up (literally) and said this just doesn’t feel right. I hate what I’m doing. I don’t want to be at this university and I don’t want to be studying marketing. I felt lost. So, being a guy who had learned to take risks and trust his gut, I packed my bags and left college for home. Goodbye state university. I moved back in with my parents the same day.

After taking a semester off I refocused on what I really loved: art. I took some classes at a community college to explore the field. Finally, I found a good fit. However, the feedback from my parents was, “you don’t want to go into art, you’ll never make money”. I didn’t listen.

I remember the day I walked in the front door of my parent’s house and told them I wanted to go to Washington University in Saint Louis. The school had a well-respected Fine Arts program. It was also very expensive and hard to get into. My parents were pretty straight forward, “if you want to go there, then you have to pay for it”. Ah, a challenge. I went to work figuring out how to apply, what paperwork I needed, and how I was going to pay for it… on my own. Yes, on my own! Needless to say, when I set my mind to something I can make it happen, and I did.

I transferred into to the BFA program at Washington University in St. Louis the next year. To this day I remember the shock of some of my high school classmates when I told them I was going to Wash U. They were quick to point out, “Wash U, you aren’t that smart”. Little did they know how smart I was. 

I not only got into the university, but I also figured out how to work two jobs, get an apartment in exchange for managing the complex, and still have time to belong to a fraternity and graduate with close to a 4.0. It was a lot of work; summers were spent working construction and doing whatever odd jobs I could scrape up. At one point I even had to go on food stamps to eat. It wasn’t easy, but I knew what I wanted and I wasn’t going to give up.

At Wash U, I majored in graphic communications and learned about art direction and the advertising industry. This is where things really clicked for me. I was a big idea person who knew how to communicate with people. I graduated from Wash U with an incredible portfolio and moved to Chicago two months later to start work atOgilvy & Mather Advertising as an Art Director. At the time, there was no better advertising agency to work for. A month later I was out working with big name directors producing commercials with million dollar budgets. It was a dream job for any student right out of college. I thought I had made it.

 So, by now you are probably thinking, wait, this guy is a Dean of Students at University of Southern California's School fo Cinematic Arts. How did he go from being an Art Director to a Dean?

Good question. I spent more than a decade in the corporate sector. Advertising was very good to me and as I grew I became professionally known for being the guy who could fix things and solve clients' problems. This helped me to move around the industry and grow from an art director to creative director. Then I did the unthinkable: I became the client. I switched directions and became a corporate marketing guy.

My final corporate position was Director of Marketing for LVMH, Moet Hennessey Louis Vuitton’s online division. This was a long way from Ogilvy & Mather and even father away from my first grade teacher telling me I was stupid and wouldn’t amount to anything. There were many struggles along the way, but each struggle opened a door that led to great things. Things like sitting in the second row at Fashion Week in Bryant Park. The glitz and glamour were exciting for the first couple of years, but with time my interest in the profession tired and grew old.

I soon realized that I didn’t want to be in the cut throat world of fashion and marketing for the rest of my life. Much like my first university experience, my gut said something was wrong. I had to find a way out. I decided to meet with a career counselor at a local nonprofit organization. This was life changing.

It was this counselor that I first shared my passion for helping young people. I remembered when I was at Washington University, I used to say I’d like to have a job like Dean Kisker. He was the Dean of Students and seemed to have a passion for helping students succeed. This really resonated with me then and still does today. When I first shared my thoughts with the counselor I thought it was just another one of my wild ideas. However, after sitting with it for a while I realized I had been helping students out for most of my corporate life. One of the things I enjoyed the most about those jobs was helping young employees adjust to the work world. I met many very intelligent graduates who did not have the skill set to shine in the "real" world. I enjoyed helping them through the transition. I helped many of them move up the career ladder by sharing skills and insights I had learned on my journey.

After some deep soul searching, career exploration, and lots of informational interviews, I took a leap of faith and, after more than a decade in the corporate world, left. I was going to pursue my passion for helping students. I wanted to be a Dean of Students. People thought I was crazy.

I knew from my research that I needed more education. So I went back to school full time to get a Master’s degree in Counseling with and emphasis in Student Services. These credentials would help me move forward with a position in academia, but the Master's degree was only going to get me so far.

So after graduation, I immediately started on my doctorate degree in education. My research for my doctoral dissertation focused on student transition from high school to college. I recalled my own experience and thought it was a rich area to research. And the results would likely help me in my future positions.

While working on my Masters degree I found ways to use my networking and life experiences to find work in academia. Remember, I wasn’t officially working anymore and I needed to pay the bills. I took any position I could find that related to student success. What helped the most was my commitment to my passion to help students, married with my background in the corporate sector.

Administrators at several universities looked at me as a person with a unique skill set and a passion for the field of student service. They embraced what I had to offer and before I knew it I was working in the university setting. It took close to another decade and a lot of patience from my family, but I finally got to the level of an Assistant Dean in a business school. That position led me to the Dean of Students position at USC School of Cinmatic Arts, which I currently hold. It was a tough road, but my passion to help students sustained me.

That's the short version of the story. I’ve left out much of the strife and struggles in my college and career transition (I could write a novel on them), but I thought it might be helpful to give you some context from which I write and why I am developing this website.

My experience is both experiential and practical. I have lived it. I have my own take on things and I don’t like beating around the bush. I have found that being up front and shooting straight from the hip works best. Some won’t agree with me, but their experience is different than mine.That’s OK.

I hope you can use the information in this website to become smarter, because I have discovered that the best way to succeed in life is to be smart (as in "street smart", not just "book smart"). As a life long student, I believe we're never as smart as we think we are. Even as I write this I am discovering new things about myself that make me smarter.

By reading the articles I've written, using the resources I've compiled, and connecting with like minded learners on my website, I hope new ideas occur to you. I hope new options become revealed to you. And I hope that we'll both become smarter.