Where Faith and Science Meet with
Compassionate Understanding

I was born in a small farming community near the coast of North Carolina. Tobacco was then a cash crop and working in the fields was the summer job to have as a 12-year-old boy. I learned the value of hard work and developed a spirituality in a small-town church that continues to sustain me today. No one person was better than another, but the summer I turned 15 my family and I moved to Atlanta, Georgia. My life went from small town rural America to life in the big city. Fast forward to college at Florida State where I met my wife of 45 years. I started working for 3M corporation in the Orthodontic industry and 3M moved us to Orlando, Florida in 1989. We raised two daughters and we have 5 grandchildren. I worked for 3M for 35 years. I traveled extensively and when my father died in 2014, I retired and went back to school at Stetson and received a Masters of Science Degree in Mental Health Counseling and Marriage and Family Therapy. My journey in this helping profession has included internships at Halifax Behavioral and Halifax adult behavioral in Dayton Beach. Working in a Baker Act receiving facility for children was indeed an eye opener. To work with children as young as four and up to 17 years of age taught me a lot about parenting, or the lack thereof, the trauma young people go through and most of the mental health issues children face. The adult psychiatric ward provided me the opportunity to witness the effects of untreated mental health issues adults face. Through all of these experiences, most included family members. Mental health issues affect the entire family.

I spent a year working in a residential treatment facility for substance abuse. Again, witnessing the effects substance abuse has on the entire family. It is truly a family disease. I also had the opportunity of working with court mandated domestic violence perpetrators both male and female. I worked in community mental health for a year, working with individuals, couples, and families in their homes. I’ve had the opportunity to work with couples, individuals and families in many different situations and with people facing many different issues.  Give me a call. Let’s talk.