I joined the Navy when I was 20 years old in Michigan shortly after September 11, 2001. I joined as a Hull Technician; which is a welder and pipe-fitter for the Navy ships. After Bootcamp and all the schooling to learn my job I got stationed in San Diego, CA. Throughout my career in the Navy, I have been on 6 different Warships, been to 18 different countries during my 9.5 deployments. Somehow I managed to stay stationed in San Diego for a total of 17 years. While in San Diego I met my beautiful wife, Tania Flikkema. For valentines day one year, she went and got a boudoir photoshoot done and got all the unedited photos for me to edit. You see, I used to edit other photographers’ photos for fun on the side. After getting these photos as a present my wife inspired me to go get my camera a Nikon D5600. That’s when I met the second love of my life, my camera. I started small shooting friends, and my wife as well and then started to branch out. After about a year of shooting in California, without any formal training, school, or a mentor I found myself getting published for the first time. After shooting in California for 3 years I found a new challenge ahead of me. I got stationed in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and had to start over meeting new models and making a new name for myself. As of right now, I am at 19.5 years in the Navy and I am about to retire. We will all have to wait to see what happens next.