After graduating from Washington University with a triple major, the author went on to obtain a Master’s degree from Stanford and a PhD in History from the University of Southern California. His doctoral research took him to Barcelona for a year, and he has continued his love affair with that spectacular city throughout his lifetime.
Following a university teaching gig, he returned to St. Louis, his birthplace, where he moved into sales as manager of marketing support for a large healthcare data processing provider. In time he found his way into a highly successful real estate brokerage career where his clients were local sports celebrities, young doctors and academics. Retiring from real estate, he and his new wife (and her senior Chihuahua) set off on a 30,000 mile odyssey in a large RV, towing a dyspeptic Jeep, determined to go as far north as they could. To the question, “It gets HOW cold here?” they eventually found the answer in Inuvik, on the Arctic Ocean!