A Brief Biography

Youth

I was born in Bear Lake County, southeastern Idaho, a second generation descendent of immigrant stock from German

Switzerland (hence, my family name), Scotland and England. I attended public schools in Pocatello, Idaho. At Pocatello

High School I especially enjoyed playing football, basketball, and running track (880 yards, now the 800 meters), winning

the state championship three consecutive years. I was voted all-around athlete in my senior year.

After high school, I attended and graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Later I

would earn a master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Washington in Seattle. I continued running track at West

Point and enjoyed competing against the elite track teams in the nation. Many of my competitors (and one of my

teammates) were Olympic-caliber athletes.

On the day of my graduation from West Point, I was commissioned a lieutenant in the United States Air Force. The

following day I was married to Chris, my high school sweetheart. I attended navigator flight school and Squadron

Officers School, graduating from both as a Distinguished Graduate. I served eight years on flying duty, logging hours

(about 2,400) on several different airplanes, among them the old DC-3, DC-4, P-3, C-135, B-47, B-52, and EC-121.

After serving in the Vietnam War, I resigned my commission as a captain and returned to graduate school and civilian

life.

After graduate school, I held faculty teaching appointments at Utah State University and the University of New Mexico.

Administration was next, first as Associate Director of the Advanced Technology Development Center at the Georgia

Institute of Technology in Atlanta, then as Associate Vice President for Research and Director of the Energy Center at the

University of Oklahoma. During the spring semester of 2009, I had a great experience as a visiting professor at Baria-

Vung Tau University located on the southern coast of Vietnam. In the summer of 2010, I was a visiting professor in the

School of International Relations at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara, a prestigious private university in the

beautiful city of Guadalajara, Mexico.

In between all of the above, I also experienced the world of private business, first as a consultant in the field of

alternative energy, then as a partner in a new company whose business focus was environmental hydrology. After about

ten years we sold the company during a wave of mergers and consolidation in the environmental services industry. At

the time, our merger resulted in the largest company in the U.S. in the environmental hydrology industry.

Chris and I have four children, all of whom are well-established, productive members of society, and a credit to their

family.