About Me
Historian. Researcher. Storyteller. Seeker.
I have always been a seeker of stories.
Not the tidy, polished versions but the real ones. The ones buried in a courthouse basement, folded inside a letter no one has opened in sixty years, or hiding in plain sight on a map that most people have never heard of. The ones that change how you understand who you are and where you came from.
That instinct has defined two very different careers. For years I worked in national security at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill, through the defining trauma of September 11th. In that world, understanding the past wasn’t academic. It was operational. History wasn’t something that happened to other people. It was the context for everything.
When I left that world and turned fully toward historical research and genealogy, I brought that same conviction with me: that the past is not a museum piece to be dusted off. It is the foundation of how we show up in the world today.
That’s what drives every project I take on, whether I’m standing at a podium, deep in an archive, or sitting across from a business owner who has never thought to ask where their story began. |
The Women Behind the Name
Every business has a name. Mine has three — and each one is a woman who shaped how I see this work.
Roma — My maternal grandmother. The inspiration.
Roma was the center of her family, the sun in our solar system. Roma married a man more than twice her age and she replaced someone whose loss remained a keystone in the family. She was a local historian long before I understood what that meant. She was the keeper of stories, the connector of people, the one who always knew where everyone came from and why it mattered. She is the reason I believe that history is not just something you study. It is something you tend.
Mary — My grandfather Carl’s first wife. Lost to the influenza in 1919.
Mary died young, taken by the Spanish flu in the worldwide pandemic that claimed more than fifty million lives, 1918-1920. She left behind a widow and three young boys. She sparked in me a lifelong fascination with how disease moves through history and through families and how the records we leave behind become the only evidence that someone was here at all. She is the reason I never take a document for granted.
Grace — My paternal grandmother. Full of surprises.
Grace was somewhat of a conundrum to me. A little gruff and distant, yet kind and generous. Born and married on Valentine’s Day, she was never one for fluff and frills. I learned to love her biting wit. When I told her I’d finished my studies and was moving to Washington, DC. I nearly drove off the road when she responded with a very strong opinion about a prominent politician — the first time I had ever heard her swear or show the slightest interest in politics. She was watching. She always was. She is the reason I believe that the quietest people often carry the most interesting stories — and that you have to get close enough to hear them.
These three women are not a branding exercise. They are the reason this business exists.
A Career Built on Understanding the Past
This is my second career. My first took me places I could never have anticipated.
I spent years working in national security — at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill, in the long shadow of September 11th. That work taught me things that no archive ever could: how decisions made in the past echo forward into the present, how institutions carry their histories in ways they don’t always recognize, and how understanding where something came from is often the only way to understand where it is going.
When I made the transition to historical research and genealogy, people sometimes asked if it felt like starting over. It never did. It felt like coming home to the same instinct in a different form.
The skills travel. The patience for primary sources. The ability to hold ambiguity while building toward a defensible conclusion. The respect for evidence. The belief that context is everything.
My past is as important as my ancestors’. Both careers have been about the same thing: finding the story that explains the present. |
I began my own family research more than thirty years ago. I added business, building, and property research in 2014 and have spent more than a decade helping clients — families, businesses, and preservation organizations — uncover the histories that define them.
How I Work
What I did not expect when I began this journey was how much genealogy and historic preservation share with the work I had done before. Meticulous research. Respect for historical context. Adherence to verifiable evidence. The discipline to say “the record doesn’t support that conclusion” even when a client hopes it does.
I write and speak as a trusted guide and experienced peer. I work alongside clients not above them to ensure their unique story isn’t just preserved, but put to work. Accuracy and substance over performance. Evidence over assumption. Patience over speed.
And always: wonder. The genuine, unperformed kind that makes you want to pull one more thread to see where it leads.
The moral of this story is that our past is not a museum piece to be dusted off. It is the foundation of how we show up in the world today. |
My Framework: The Three Bs
Business History
How did this business begin? What has it survived? What does 10, 20, or 50 years in the community say about your values, your resilience, and your people?
Building History
What is the story of the space you occupy? Who built it, who worked here before you, and what happened within these walls that made this corner of your town what it is today?
Brand History
How has your identity, your reputation, and your relationship with your community evolved over time? What authentic threads connect who you were then to who you are now?
Background & Experience
Experience | 12+ years of professional historical research and genealogy |
Preservation | 60+ properties listed on the National and State Registers of Historic Places |
Speaking | National World War One Museum and Memorial (2018, 42,000+ YouTube views); genealogical societies, historical organizations, and conferences across the United States and internationally |
Geography | Based in Alabama; clients and projects across the United States, with particular depth in Kansas and Missouri |
Specialties | Business history, historic preservation research, genealogical research, Sanborn fire insurance maps, land and property records, AI-assisted research methods |
First Career | National security, including work at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill |
Research Start | Personal genealogical research begun more than 30 years ago; professional practice since 2014 |
I hope this inspires you to look closer
At the stories you’ve inherited. At the ones you are currently building. At the history you are standing on right now, whether you realize it or not.
Every family has a Mary — someone whose story almost disappeared. Every business has a Roma — a thread of community and purpose that connects the past to the present. Every archive has a Grace — a moment of unexpected delight hiding inside a document that most people would have walked right past. I’d love to help you find yours.
When a business owner realizes their history is remarkable — and that it can change how their customers see them — that is the moment I live for. |