I am fortunate. My father was born in a West African village and was the first person in his family to learn to read. It is likely he was the first literate sprig to emerge from the branches of his ancestral family tree in the quarter million years since the first homo sapiens roamed the plains of Eastern Africa. My mother came from relatively more privilege. The two met in high school in Africa and came to the States for college where they got married and produced two kids while still struggling to graduate.
As the second of those two kids, I hit the cosmic jackpot. With an unlikely confluence of the trillions of permutations of timing, genetics, environment, random events, and the actions of hundreds of kind and caring people, I find myself having lived a charmed life in the Unites States – perhaps the only country where a story like mine is possible. Just one generation removed from illiteracy on my father’s side, I have seen and done things, and enjoyed a quality of life most could only dream of.
With help from an array of family members, friends, and strangers, I graduated from college with a degree in physics and served 21 years in the Navy – first as a nuclear submarine officer and then an F-18 fighter pilot.
While in the Navy, I earned five Navy Air Medals for flying more than 70 combat missions from the decks of aircraft carriers. Following my last assignment as commanding officer of a fighter squadron, I retired from the Navy and earned a Master of Business Management as a Sloan Fellow at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. I have worked in the life sciences industry for nearly 20 years since then. I have a wife and two children who are the prime motivation for all I do that is worthwhile.
Along my career journey, I’ve periodically taken a few months off from my day jobs to indulge in writing. Inspired by my concern about today’s contentious culture wars, my love of this country, and the Broadway hit Hamilton, I took a break from leading life science manufacturing operations to write Tribes USA. It is my fervent hope that everyone exposed to this project will be reminded of how lucky we all are to live in the US, but also how close we are to squandering our good fortune overindulging in cultural-political tribalism.