50 years in 50 seconds.

Shortly after High School, I received a draft notice from the US Army.   After training at Ft Leonard Wood,  MO,  I was assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers and was sent to Germany where I served 10 months in the General Depot.   In March 1968,  I went on leave in route to Vietnam.   I arrived in country 1 week after TET  ‘68 in Saigon, the area most devastated by the offensive,  and participated in the defensive clean-up.   I was also present in Feb ‘69 for “Minni-TET” and left for CONUS and discharge in Aug 1969.

I enrolled at WSC in Winter Quarter 1971,  met my future bride (Deborah Merriam - OHS Class of ‘71) and we were married in 1972 (by far my best decision).  I graduated from WSC in 1974 and we had the first of four daughters the same year.  One of the Police Science professors had written a grant to start a Crime Lab in Utah in 1973 and I was hired as a student aid in June 1974 which turned into full time employment.  I conducted tests on physical evidence submitted from federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. The bulk of our case load was narcotics and dangerous drug identification but we were a Composite Crime Lab to include: paint comparison, physiological fluids, latent print comparison, firearms identification, hairs and fibers comparison and a catch all we labeled trace evidence which included glass, soil, tars, etc found at a crime scene.  At our peak, we were logging over 2,000 cases a year which included, homicides, burglary, drug possession and distribution, assaults and most everything the police arrested someone for.  I worked for 27 years (until I was called to active duty in the USAF in the support of the 911 attack) and I processed evidence relating to Ted Bundy, Ruddy Rebitrono, Allen Lovell, Jerry Casida and a lot of not so famous criminals. There are a lot of stories that are funny, sad and heart breaking.

The Crime Lab was located in the Social Science Building at WSU and I taught matriculated classes related to Criminal Justice as an adjunct professor on  campus and all over Utah and Western Wyoming.

I Joined the USAF Reserves in 1978 and served as a Special Agent in the OSI. I conducted criminal investigations, fraud investigations, (I worked on the largest dollar value fraud in AF history), I was on protective details over most of the world protecting US military dignitaries and foreign top level military leaders from many countries with, literally, a license to kill. I once interviewed Santa Clause (Really) and a professor who was targeted by Ted Kaczynski, also known as "The Unabomber", I worked at the Pentagon for six months collecting AT and CI from around the world and briefed Two Letter Generals who gave the information to the SECDEF, Donald Rumsfeld, who then gave it to Pres George W. Bush.

I served as a USAF Academy Liaison Officer assisting high school students in the laborious application process to be accepted as a cadet at the USAF Academy, Colorado Springs. I had the privilege to interview Chuck Yeager’s grand nephew and a bunch of awesome candidates from many high schools in Utah.  I retired from the USAF in 2007 with 32 years of service.

I consider my greatest accomplishment as a co-parent with my lovely wife to raise four awesome daughters who have become successful in their labors and family life.  Debby and I have 7 grandchildren who are worth every minute they take from our retirement.