I grew up in the border town of Eagle Pass, Tx. My Mom loved plants and her passion for them inspired me. After graduating from Eagle Pass High School in 1992, I moved away to go to school at A&M Kingsville. There, I took on a job as a gardener/greenhouse helper, assisting Dr. Peter Felker graft hundreds of mesquite trees. I loved that job! Then, my life shifted trajectories. I joined the U. S. Navy, and received orders for Japan, where I remained for three years.
While stationed in that country, my ship, the USS Thach, took me to countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Dubai, the Philippine Islands and even Australia. I couldn't have asked for a better Navy home base. Four years later, I was back in America, I moved to San Antonio, Tx. and continued my schooling. After graduating from Our Lady of the Lake Universary, I attended my first Alamo Orchid Society (AOS) Orchid Show in 2013.
I loved it. So, I joined the Society and became a very active member. Ultimately, I was elected AOS President in 2017 and again in 2018. I also became Curator of the San Antonio Botanical Gardens orchid greenhouse during that time. But in 2020, I received a shock! The new AOS Board of Directors expelled me from the Society. How and why that happened is the subject of my book.
I grew up in Boston, moved to Ann Arbor, where I received my Ph.
D. in Sociology at the University of Michigan, then moved again to San Antonio, where I taught Sociology at the University of Texas. I am the author of seven books: "Violence and Religious Commitment" (Penn State Press), about the suicide and murder of over 900 members of the People's Temple Church in the Jonestown massacre; "Proving God Exists: Physics, Cosmology, and the Universal Mind, " about scientific proof for God's existence; "The Moral Symmetry of Good and Evil, " about the scientific derivation of morality; "Knowing: Consciousness and the Universal Mind, " a composite theory for solving the "hard problem" of consciousness; "Mind of God, " addressing the question, "Does the Universe think?" "Scandal in the American Orchid Society, " about treachery and betrayaI in a volunteer organization; and "American Hitler, " about Trump and his fanatical followers.
I have also published a series of six articles on human consciousness in "The Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research, " in addition to several other articles on violence, crime, and delinquency, including "Becoming a Hit Man" (Sage Publications), which has since been cited in over 110 other books and articles.
