What I consider to be my greatest personal achievement is my family. I have succeeded at doing other things but, without them other accomplishments would not have been as meaningful or fulfilling to me. My family is the greatest motivator in my life and, when I falter, I find strength in them and together we persevere. I have been married ten wonderful years now and my wife is my best friend and it was so when we were in high school as well. After many long years where we were out of communication with one another, we found each other again and have been together since. Our oldest son, my stepson Damon, graduated with honors from Vanguard High School and is now serving our country in the United States Navy. Although he takes these steps by himself, I feel like I -along with my wife- helped him set and reach his goals by providing strong, positive, loving role models that he can always rely on to be there for him. My wife and I also have two sons together, Jude and Jack. Jude is a great big brother to Jack - who is our most recent addition. My boys bring me so much joy and I am thankful everyday I get to set my eyes on them. As I said, my family means everything to me.

Besides my family, I have other things that I've done to take pride in. I am the first person in my family to graduate from college, a success I didn't originally imagine would happen considering I took my GED and dropped out of high school. Since I began a serious pursuit of education, I have earned my A.A. degree with honors, became a member of Phi Theta Kappa, earned my A.D.N. degree with honors, and am now looking to graduate with my B.S.N. degree with honors as well! This is a huge change from the construction worker I started off as when I first started nursing school.