I am a U.S. Army veteran of the Second Gulf War. I served as a Signals Intelligence Analyst working in conjunction with the National Security Agency in Texas and South Korea. I left the Army in 2015, and after nearly two years of working as a Satellite Installation Technician with AT&T, I decided to return to university to pursue higher education. First, I earned an Associates' degree in Communications from Victor Valley College. I graduated in 2018 and then transferred to California State University, Long Beach, pursuing a Bachelor's in Journalism and a minor in Spanish, graduating in the spring of 2021. While working for the student newspaper, The Daily Forty-Niner, I won 3 first-place photo awards from different California college media associations. I currently work as the Photo Editor and principal photographer for the Signal Tribune Newspaper in Signal Hill, California.