1) I’ve been Siena’s “Safety Guy” for the past 16 years and wear many hats in any given day. From state and federal code compliance to hazardous waste handling and disposal, to employee safety training, to being part of the employee workers comp team, each day is different. For the past 15 months, I’ve been part of Siena’s COVID-19 Ops Team and focused on administrating tests for students and employees as well as vaccinations. If you’ve been down to the MAC for that, I probably said hi and helped you through it. Thank you for your patience!
2) My wife and I live in the beautiful Helderberg Mountains where we raised our two children, Maclin and Kristen. I enjoy tinkering around the 250-acre family farm where you never know what animals I might have. From pheasants and chickens to a small flock of sheep, a miniature donkey named “Belle,” and before her, “Charlie,” and before him was “Worthless” the donkey. I almost bought a camel once, but that deal fell through. Maybe that was for the best.
3) Growing up, my dad always had a few hives of bees, and when I took over the honey business, I grew it into a migratory honey bee business with over 600 hives. (I’ll save you the math, that’s about 12 million bees.) I would load them up on flatbed trucks covered with netting and bring them to sunny North Carolina in the fall, and back home in the spring. Yeah, I’ve been kicked out of a few gas stations over the years, but that is a story for another day.
4) One of our biggest honey lines is our barrel aged honey we market as “Black Sheep Honey” Bourbon barrel aged honey. We ship to stores across the country every day. I still get asked to speak at schools, bee clubs, and state conferences throughout the east coast.
5) I always enjoyed flat water canoe and kayak racing and got to be quite competitive. I qualified for the U.S. Olympic Sports Festival and was sent all over to compete. I was on the men’s team and my wife was on the women’s team. Over a four or five year span, we went to events from coast to coast. This was special because we were in the opening ceremonies with so many elite athletes you never knew who we would be sitting next to. One year we were next to Jackie Joyner-Kersee. In 1994 in St. Louis, I was next to boxer Floyd Mayweather.
6) As canoe and kayak coaches, we were able to train over 25 national champions. I worked closely with the U.S. Olympic Training Centers in Lake Placid, NY and Chula Vista, CA and would often be asked to organize and run some of their largest completions such as international regattas, national team qualifiers and even the Olympic team qualifiers. My wife and I was able to see so much of the country and it was a blast.
7) My son was born in 1996 and that was the same year as the Atlanta Olympics, so at barely 6 months old, he was in his baby carrier, under the athletes’ tent right next to the finish line while his mom and dad worked the games. He was surrounded by the best athletes in the world. He has a trunk filled with pins and cool little trinkets given to him by these racers. A few years later, I was honored to be inducted into the International Canoe & Kayak Hall of Fame.
8) I owned an ice cream shop in Lake George and recently built a concession trailer which makes, bakes, and serves hot chocolate chip cookies and the best ice cream sandwiches around! Yes, I own my own cookie factory! We are at fairs and festivals all around the region. Be sure to stop in and say, “Hi.”
9) Baking cookies is a blast (and yes I do bake the cookies), but my trips to the Carolinas and Texas is where I acquired the need for REAL BBQ. So, what started off as a fun hobby, turned into local BBQ chicken fundraisers. Now I’m catering a full SCCA car racing team as they compete at places like Watkins Glenn (NY), Lime Rock (CT), VIR (VA) Pocono (PA) and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway!
10) My kids say my BBQ is awesome, but my pizza is way better. That may tie-in nicely with my next project. I recently completed a full rebuild of a 1966 Freihofer’s bread delivery truck and have begun converting it into my next food truck. What’s on the menu? You’ll just have to wait and see.
