Jeff was born and raised in Iowa. During high school he excelled in music; after earning five major letters in music, he was the second-seated euphonium player in the state his senior year, and was nominated for the McDonald’s All-American Band. He was also the only student in his graduating class to be a member of all four of the school’s honor societies – National Honor Society, Tri-M (Modern Music Masters), Thespians and Quill and Scroll.
Jeff majored in music performance at the University of Iowa for three years, then left college to enlist in the U.S. Air Force and join the USAF Band of the East at McGuire AFB, NJ.
For six years Jeff toured with the AF Band across New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, where he took part in more than 1,000 performances as principal euphoniumist, featured soloist, narrator and sound engineer. In that time he played for many celebrities, including Bob Hope, Jimmy Stewart, Danny Kay, Dustin Hoffman, Brooke Shields, Ann Jillian, Bernadette Peters, Vic Damone, Cher and others.
As a member of the AF Band Jeff played in a wide range of performance settings - as small as a brass quartet show of Christmas carols for a few homesick young airmen on McGuire AFB’s flightline, and as large as the Statue of Liberty Centennial Celebration in Battery Park, NYC – Jeff was the featured narrator in this performance to a crowd of 100,000 and a radio audience of 6 million. Other major performances included a ticker tape parade across the Brooklyn Bridge for Viet Nam Veterans, the 6th game of the 1986 World Series at Shea Stadium, the funeral parade for General Twining in Arlington National Cemetery, several concerts in Schubert Alley on Broadway and many others.
While in the band Jeff rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant. He graduated from the NCO Leadership School in Dover, Delaware as a distinguished graduate and earned his class’s Communicator’s Award.
In 1987 Jeff retrained into the Air Force industrial engineering program, graduating as a distinguished graduate from the technical school at Keesler AFB in Mississippi, and became a management engineer for Strategic Air Command (SAC). Stationed at Dyess AFB in Abilene, Texas, he was the first person to develop manpower standards for the B-1B Bomber aircrew training school and job standards for the B1 field maintenance crews. Jeff’s instructional guides on how to prepare manpower standards reports were used by SAC as training guides for other management engineering detachments around the world.
In 1991 Jeff transferred to March AFB in Southern California, where he developed a civilian-to-military transition study for the missile instrumentation group at Vandenberg AFB that saved the government over $5 million per year. Jeff received the SAC Manpower Management Technician of the Quarter Award for this study.
While serving as a manpower management technician, Jeff began freelance writing. He wrote a book that never sold, but during the development this book he began to write articles for sports collectibles magazines. Ultimately Jeff published more than 100,000 words and 100 photographs in nationally distributed magazines including Writer’s Digest and Boys Life. His articles included interviews with many famous athletes, including Gale Sayers, OJ Simpson, Joe Theismann, Oscar Robertson, Monte Irvin, Bobby Hull, Rod Carew and Don Mattingly.
Jeff separated from the Air Force in late 1993. After his experiences with several major earthquakes and the Rodney King riots, Jeff was ready to get away from California. He moved to Grapevine, Texas in December 1992, a few months prior to the birth of his son, Ryan.
Unfortunately, the job market for euphonium-playing industrial engineer veterans without a bachelor’s degree was a bit soft at this time and Jeff was forced to start over. He worked temporary jobs for various companies, finally landing in an administrative assistant position with Frito-Lay. After three years there he moved to a senior administrative assistant position with a venture capital firm in Dallas.
By this time Jeff had taught himself web design and graphics editing, and after three years was able to secure a position as a web developer for a tech company in Richardson.
Jeff continued to expand his skills into more advanced web technologies, and in 2004 he became the information manager for a construction company in Arlington. In 2010, following the collapse of the commercial construction industry due to the recession, Jeff left the construction world to become the marketing communications specialist for a transportation industry contractor in Denton. In 2013 Jeff returned to the construction company as the marketing communications manager.
Jeff's InterestsJeff’s interests are as diverse as his biography.
Copyright 2013 Jeff and Monique