It all started when I was very young, before I can remember. My father was an avid fisherman. Old family photos show me with him on fishing trips. Although my dad died before I turned four, my mother and family friends made sure that my three brothers and I continued to have outdoor experiences including Boy Scouts, camping, hiking and fishing. The first fish I caught were probably bluegills (sunnies) and yellow perch.

The next step toward my career occurred in high school. I took Band as a freshman, attempting to play the clarinet. I signed up for Band again for sophomore year, but was told by the school that I had to take Biology instead.

My college biology program had primarily a pre-medical bent with no natural history or environmental classes. However, in my junior year, a joint effort with our sister college was initiated offering a couple of aquatic environmental field classes. Our professor for these classes, Dr. Janis Rose, was a herpetologist on the staff of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. His enthusiasm for field work was contagious. He literally bubbled over our findings in plankton tows from the Hudson River. During the two years that I spent in his classes we did field studies of the aquatic ecology of lakes in New York and New Jersey. I was hooked.

The summer after my junior year I took Dr. Rose's month-long class in marine biology in the Bahamas. Besides the location, the class was great; it was almost constant field and lab work. It led me, after graduation, to graduate school in marine biology at the University of Delaware. School was then cut short by the Viet Nam years and three years of active duty with the Navy, mostly on the island of Guam. Snorkeling and walking the coral reefs were the perfect pastime for someone with a background in marine ecology.

Three years of living on the ocean turned my thoughts back to freshwater fisheries. A new, post-military, graduate program at Montana State University cemented my career direction. The fishing in and around Bozeman was great. Dr. Bill Gould was my advisor and mentor. Under his guidance I volunteered for fisheries field crews and worked one summer job on a crew. Most of my classes there were fish & wildlife, ecology and aquatic oriented. Dr. Gould saw me through field research and a thesis, and he was instrumental in getting me my first professional job with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Since then, I have had a series of fish or wildlife positions with Montana, the Corps of Engineers and 26 years with BLM. And to think that I could have been playing a bad clarinet on street corners instead.