Tell us about yourself.
The first thing I have to say is that I really love working with the GTI team at NC State and with all the students, faculty, and partners we work with. The various roles I fulfill here at NC State are a really big part of who I am and how I spend my time and energy. But I am also a husband of 30+ years to someone I simply adore and have three terrific adult children who have all moved out of the house and away from Raleigh.
Family is the most important thing in my life.
Tell us what you were doing before you came to NC State/GTI.
Before I came to NC State, I was the Associate Director of the International Center at UNC Chapel Hill, and I was an International Student and Scholar Advisor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN before that. Before then I was teaching English to international students in Boston, Japan, and in Florida. I came to NC State in 1996 to become the Director of the Office of International Services and then began the GTI in 2007 in order to create more innovative programs and opportunities in global education.
Tell us what you do in a few sentences.
I spend a lot of time responding to and writing emails. Literally, like a hundred a day or 4 hours each day (at least I’m not stuck in long boring meetings like some other professionals). I much prefer meeting face-to-face with the GTI team members, faculty on campus, and other people around the state – talking about new and really impactful opportunities to help our students, faculty, and clients do something internationally or cross-culturally….and learning about all the smart and interesting people here at NC State. When I am not doing “director” stuff like personnel/supervision, budgeting, strategic planning, report generation, and solving problems or answering questions, I am usually talking with people, developing new programs with new clients, or promoting the 35+ programs we are already doing each year.
What do you like to do outside of work?
My favorite thing to do outside of work is to go on outdoor adventures with my wife – and with other family members and friends if possible. We often head to the mountains on the weekends to go hiking and viewing waterfalls. We like to go canoeing or out on a boat in the ocean. We also like gardening – we grow flowers and vegetables in several raised garden beds in our backyard. I also try to spend some time each day learning or reviewing different languages I have studied. I am focusing mostly on Spanish right now, but I’m also trying not to forget the Japanese I learned in Japan and some of the ancient languages (Greek, Hebrew, and Akkadian) I studied as a post-graduate student.
What’s something about you (a fun fact) that not many people know?
My first overseas experience was spending the summer of my 16th year with a small indigenous tribe in the remotest part of the Brazilian Amazon near the Bolivian border. It was everything one could imagine – a steamy jungle with zillions of trees and windy rivers, sleeping in hammocks outside under mosquito netting, colorful parrots, tarantulas, really long anacondas, jaguars, monkeys, bugs, tapirs, swarms of beautiful butterflies, and did I say bugs already?
What’s the next place on your travel bucket list?
My next travel destination will be with my wife as we revisit Boston (where we met and married) then we will head up to the Atlantic Northeast and the Maritime Provinces of Canada.
