“Knowledge is power. Simple as that”, said my Sergeant as he was running our platoon through drills while we were preparing to go to Iraq. We were being sent to Fallujah and we knew it was going to be a bad time. He had already been there on a previous deployment and was doing his best to make sure all the lessons he could to give us were beaten into our heads and were second nature. I’ve always been glad that he did. While our platoon suffered some casualties, myself included, we didn’t have any KIA and that was a rarity in our battalion during the fight.

Ever since then I’ve been absolutely convinced that training, education and a solid understanding of the fundamentals is necessary for any success.

I have always been an advocate for training and continuous education. I have designed classes in the Marine Corps and that I was given multiple awards for going above and beyond in doing my best to pay it forward. I believed that it was my responsibility to make sure any knowledge I had was passed on to the Marines and Sailors on my team. One of my favorite personal memories was being trusted to lead a small team of Ukrainians and Marines on a during our unit’s deployment to Ukraine as part of Operation Sea Breeze in 2011.

That attitude stayed with me during my time at Veterans United when worked to be licensed in 10+ states as a Mortgage Loan Officer. I served as a Senior Transaction Coordinator for several different teams, including in the Lighthouse program where it was part of my job to educate borrowers on what documents they’ll need to complete the loan process.