My origin, a small coal mining town in Pennsylvania where I was fortunate to have an older gentleman neighbor who took me under his wing, purchased my first fly tying vise and spent numerous hours instructing me on the fine points of fly fishing, fly tying, rod wrapping and rod repair. I am 70 now, 60 years have past since I tied the first over-hand knot on a hook. I can honestly say there is no standard I could use to measure the amount of pleasure fly fishing and fly tying have brought to my life. Whenever, I find stress in life, I know I can find comfort at my vise. In 1958, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I thought I had died and gone to heaven. All the wonderful activities I read about as a child and now considered important, where there waiting for me to exploit, hunting, fishing, skiing, etc. Eventually, I married and fathered two children requiring me to move to Michigan where I worked for Ford Motor company. It didn't take me long to realize how much I missed Colorado and all that it provided. After two long years, I returned to Colorado where I enrolled at Colorado State College (Northern Colorado University) and received a degree in marketing. I continued my education at Colorado State University and received a MSBA in business. While there doing graduate work I was asked to teach in the Marketing Department. While at CSU I obtained a real estate license and accepted a position in real estate with a company based in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. And so my interst in fly fished continued. In Steamboat, Dan Byford and I open the Dan Byford Fly Shop. The demands of real estate took me back to Denver where I had my first experience in commercial real estate. That was 1976 and since then commercial real estate has taken me to live in some rather wonderful places like Montana, Utah and Texas where I retired in 1996. I continue to be active in real estate only as an owner. However, my time now is dedicated to pursuing my interests, fly fishing, photography/underwater photography, scuba diving, hunting, skiing and traveling. Currently I am a member of the Texas Fly Fishers (www.texasflyfishers.org) where I assist in teaching fly tying. I am also a member of the Houston Underwater Photographic Society (www.hups.org) where I am a board member, the former director of education activities and now assist in teaching underwater photograph.