I grew up in the small town of Milbank in northeast South Dakota.

I met my wife, Anita when we were in high school, so yes, we were high school sweethearts! 

I received a BA from South Dakota State University.  When I was 24, I moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado to work with the Navigator ministry and to attend their Leadership Development Institute.  It was during this time that I began to really think through my life up to that point and to understand the things through my life that impacted who I was then. We spent a lot of time dealing with relationships and how we impact one another. At the end of my commitment there I went to intern at a Christian counseling center in the Springs called Release Ministries.  It was here that God set in motion a desire to come up with ways to counsel and help people with their struggles.  After about two years at the counseling center, Anita and I were married in 1989. 

During our early years of marriage we worked with youth, but I often felt that in order to bring permanent change in a young person’s life, the lives of the parents needed to change also.  In 1995, Anita and I made the decision to move to Dallas and to attend Dallas Theological Seminary where in 1999 I graduated with a masters degree in Christian Education and Biblical Studies.  For the next 25 years I worked as an associate pastor in two different churches in Blair, Nebraska and Bismarck, North Dakota.  Through these years God brought some incredible mentors into my life who had counseling ministries of their own and poured their knowledge into me. I have felt so blessed to have learned from these individuals. My passion through my pastoral years has been to counsel people and if I couldn’t counsel them myself, I found others who could give them the help they needed. Because of the many responsibilities of the church, I was never able to fully counsel people with the amount of time that I believe the people needed. Being away from the church now, I am able to fully devote my time to counseling which I so enjoy.

Anita and I have three amazing kids; Zach and his wife Sydney are living in the Nashville area.  Our favorite (and only) daughter is Sarah and she is living in Rochester, Minnesota.  And our youngest son, Josh, is going to school at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix.