News and Updates

What New Orleans neighborhood do you live in? / Where did you grow up?

7^th Ward.  Bloomington, IN

Describe your job to us!

East Bank constituent services, and when I occasionally come up for air, all things land use.

Tell us about your career path.

Circuitous. My parents own a restaurant.  We lived upstairs.  Born and raised in hospitality; I have always worked in restaurants to support myself. 2003 Served a year in AmeriCorps NCCC2004 Served two years with the Marines 2006. Attended CUNY Hunter College in NYC 2007 Attended Indiana University Bloomington. 2008 Attended Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru. 2009 Graduated from Indiana University as a theater major. 2010 Deployed to Afghanistan with 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines. 2011 Walked 5,000 miles across Southeast Asia to raise funds/awareness for children living with clefts.  At some point, a US consular officer stationed in Laos caught wind and reached out.  From there, I began speaking at US Embassies along the way. 

This led to an introduction to the head of Google's Hong Kong office, which led to speaking opportunities at Google offices along the way.  They even went so far as to feature me in a Google Maps commercial. 2013 Moved to Chicago to apprentice at an urban farm. 2013 Followed my then-girlfriend/now-wife to Tampa Bay, where she landed her clinical fellowship after grad school in speech pathology (she is now a professor at LSU in New Orleans)

Made my living at night serving up steaks at Capital Grille. Got my first taste of effecting legislative change around this time: we kept a miniature goat and sheep and got cited by code enforcement. 

This prompted me to reach out to our city council rep and get the law changed.  Residents of St Pete can now keep up to two miniature goats and two miniature sheep. 2014 Left Capital Grille and opened up St Pete's Ruth's Chris Steak House. 2016 Transferred to New Orleans' Ruth's Chris, where I met Cm King.He must have liked what he saw because I work for him now,

What aspects of your job do you enjoy the most?

Losing myself in the details, getting to the bottom of exactly why/how a breakdown occurred, problem-solving until resolution is reached

What challenges do you find to be the greatest in your role?

I would say the emotional intelligence component has been a learning curve for me: knowing when a constituent just wants to be heard / needs someone to vent to vs. when they are actually looking for action to be taken; appropriately managing constituents' expectations.

What is your favorite thing about New Orleans?

The streetscapes