So we made it to Erie in February of 1990. 

It’s funny how it happens. It’s the one place as a young person you set goals and make plans to leave, but for me I ended up back there. This was not a bad thing at all. I have an amazing family, which I’m very grateful for. They are one of the reasons I have made it to where I am today. 

I really had no plan for when I got out of the Corps. I just got out. I was 25 years old, with a 4 year old son and a very loose to no plan for my life and no job. 

I started out working for manpower, for a brief moment. It was horrible work and they took a good portion of my wages. I was taking forms of plastic pippets, placing them into a press to be push out of the form into a container. 

As it happened, my brother in law, who lived in the Pittsburgh area, had a landscape company and had a job opening. I could live with them and work, while I applied for law enforcement jobs on the east coast. So that’s what we did. It was a farm in the country and beautiful. 

I ended up applying to three departments; Fairfax, VA; Prince George’s County Police, MD; and Anne Arundel County Police, MD. I was on a first come first serve situation, what ever agency offered me a job first was going to be my new place of employment. 

PG County stopped the out of state hiring process due to cost. Anne Arundel County offered me a position and then Fairfax did. So Anne Arundel County was our new destination. The time, September 1990. I started in October. 

I have a brother and his family who used to live in Elliott City and they were willing to let us stay with them for the first year till I got settled. 

I remember my first day at the academy. I had done a trial run driving to the academy so I wouldn’t get lost and wouldn’t have any problems. As it turned out, the first day I took a wrong turn and ended up at the Bay bridge, about 20 minutes east of where I was supposed to be. 

I thought for sure I lost my job.