How long have you worshiped at Saint Philip’s?
Since late 2024.

What about Saint Philip’s appeals to you?
I feel that my children are in a place where nourishing their spirit is valued and programs are offered for their specific age group. Almost everything my wife, Amy, and I do right now is geared towards our kids.

Saint Philip’s offers a good combination of programming and community. And as our oldest son approaches adulthood we’re starting to have good conversations about the sermons.

What role does faith play in your life?
I think I neglected my faith—especially when the kids were really young. But something happened along the way when I became a parent; the responsibility and heaviness of that started to press on me.

I started to see the world a little differently and faith started to creep back in. Maybe it’s because I want my children to have the faith I did when I was a child—even though that was good and bad.

Were you raised in a faith community?
I was raised in the Roman Catholic church. It offered a certain assurance that if I do well by my neighbors and community something good will be waiting for me when I die. And I’ll get to see my parents and grandparents.

The heavier, fearful guilt I absorbed came more from the community than the church. I had a real fear that I would go straight to hell. But I have cousins who grew up with me and they thrived in that atmosphere. We’re all different.

Ultimately, I’d like my kids to have a spiritual life without the bad, heavy fears I remember.

Where did you grow up?
Close to the Gulf Coast in northern Mexico—very close to the Texas border.

What brought you to the United States?
My dad was a construction worker. We lived in Mexico but he commuted daily to work in the United States.

The plan was always to come to the United States. Eventually he was able to buy a plot of land in southern Texas and he spent weekends building our house.

I was 10 years old and in the fifth grade when we moved.

What was it like to move to the United States?
It was a shock to my system—for good and for bad.

In Mexico I was the top student in my class. I was very outgoing and confident. Some might say obnoxious!

Then all of a sudden we moved to the United States and I didn’t really speak the language. There were other kids who spoke Spanish but in the classroom it was all English. I fell behind and became very insecure. Combine that with the onset of puberty and it was a shock.

However, the biggest shock was a year later. There was a downturn in construction work so my parents moved the family to Washington state to work in the fields.

What was that move like?
My siblings were 13 and 15 years old and worked with my parents. I was 11 years old and required to be in school so I worked the fields only on the weekends.

But the biggest shock was that the school I attended was English-only. What took an English speaking kid in my class 15 minutes to do took me three hours because I had to decipher every word.

The experience was immersive and ultimately helped accelerate learning English but I wasn’t happy about it.

We lived in a trailer reserved for farmworkers. My parents and siblings would leave at 5:00am so I would cook my breakfast, eat, lock up the house, and walk to the bus stop. When I got back from school I did my homework and made dinner for myself. That was new because my mother was a homemaker and had always taken care of the house.

I went through the motions but realize in hindsight that the pressure of such massive change was why I developed some obsessive compulsive behaviors. I didn’t know it at the time but now realize that’s what happened.

What do you do professionally?
I’m a Mechanical Engineer at Raytheon.

What about mechanical engineering captures your interest?
It goes back a long way. We weren’t poor but we weren’t rich so a lot of the things my brother and I played with were things we made ourselves. There were always building materials around because of my dad’s construction work.

There wasn’t a lot of electronic equipment so fixing things and putting them together was something I did from a very young age. It helps that my brain works that way.

How are you involved in the parish?
Most recently, the Angel Tree Project. Our family sponsored two children. Any and I wanted to help those kids and also help our boys (who are 10 and 15 years old) begin to understand how privileged they are.

We took the boys to the store and let them choose the gifts the Angel Tree children asked for. Having the boys see what the kids wanted and comparing it to what they themselves have hopefully helped them get a sense of how good they have it.

This past summer I helped with Vacation Bible School.

What was it like volunteering for Vacation Bible School?
Forget any stress that I have a Raytheon—preparing meals for the children at camp was intense!

Thank goodness for parishioner Karen Dresback who managed it all. She was born to be an executive. I just had to follow directions. She was always five steps ahead—making the schedule, having contingency plans, organizing the shopping, etc. I’ll do it again but only if Karen does, too!

What prompted you to volunteer?
Amy and I talked about what we like doing and what we should be doing. And then we flipped things.

Amy is naturally more in tune with the sort of thing I did at VBS. I’m usually the handyman; I fix everything. So it would have made sense for me to go on the mission trip to San Diego.

But Amy suggested we take ourselves out of our comfort zones. And it was a great experience for both of us.

What’s something you know now that you didn’t when you were younger?
I used to put people on pedestals and pretty much hero worship them. And I did that early on in relationships before I really knew them. And, inevitably, I would be disappointed. I’ve learned from those experiences.

Also…Start out with patience instead of with anxiety. Take a deep breath before starting any task even if I don’t think it will be demanding.

What’s something you find challenging?
People regularly encourage me to manage larger groups of people. I’m very social and have good relationships with my colleagues and the small team I do manage, but I’ve run away from expanding that role. I don’t want to be responsible for doing annual reviews.

I don’t know if I can pin-point the reason. Maybe a justified fear? Maybe not wanting to be responsible for that many people? Or fear of failure? Regardless of why, that invitation is a real challenge for me.

What’s one of your core values?
Relationships are incredibly important to me.

Some of my professional success is because I’m good at creating and maintaining relationships. And I think that’s grounded in treating people the way I want to be treated.

I’m good at connecting with people, and try to make the workplace fun. Engineering work can be quite dull because it’s often very repetitive.

What’s one of your guiding principles?
I think one that’s become more important as I’ve grown older is reconnecting with home and family. I wish I’d done a better job of that when I was younger.

Both my parents and both of Amy’s parents have died so I want to pass on to our boys the importance of family. I don’t want them to have some of the same regrets I do.

Can you provide an example?
I went off to college and called home once every two weeks—after being with my parents every day of my life until I left.

I didn’t give much thought to what my departure did to them because I was off having fun.

That was partly due to taking the community I had for granted. I had 80 cousins in my neighborhood and didn’t think much about it. In comparison, our sons’ nearest cousins are in South Texas and Atlanta.

What’s something you’re grateful for?
So many things! For this interview I’ll say I’m grateful for the friendships that I’ve made.

All the different friendships have—in their own way—enlightened me or taught me a skill or shown me what to avoid. They’ve also led to different professional opportunities.

I’m 49 years old and when I think about the path I’ve taken to get where I am now…well, I’ve been blessed. In the grand scheme of things my life has been quite easy.

Is there anything you regret?
I was Salutatorian of my high school class, and didn’t use my speech to thank all the people who helped me achieve that accomplishment. I was so young.

What’s one of your super powers?
I’m pretty good at seeing the big picture. That drives my wife crazy when we watch movies because I often figure out the plot before it’s revealed.

That probably goes hand in hand with being able to read people well. But that helps me connect to people easily which is probably another super power.

What’s something about you that friends have said they really appreciate?
Six of my closest friends are from my college frat days. We live all over the country but once a year we get together.

We spend a few days being the boys we once were: tearing each other down and pounding on each other mentally and physically. All that to say we tend not to talk too much about how we feel. But the fact that we continue to meet every year says a lot of what we don’t express.

And we do have emotional conversations. One year a friend was about to get divorced. There were a lot of tears during that visit.

What’s something new you’ve done recently?
I’ve started taking classical guitar lessons. I’ve had a guitar for years and taught myself some campfire songs, but I never knew how to read music. I’m learning that now.

Our son Benali has been taking classical guitar lessons for five years now so he’s far ahead of me. But I hope to get good enough to do some duets with him. I’m making some nice sounds out of the guitar and that feels good.

What would you do if you won the lottery?
I would love to learn to fly an airplane—even though I’ve always been nervous inside airplanes. I think that’s because I like to have control. But if I were the pilot, then I’d have that control and not be as nervous. I think.

Getting a windfall of money would give me a lot of disposable time. I’d love to learn as many languages as I could and then travel.

Where would you travel first?
India because I love Indian food.

What’s a fun fact about you?
That even though I’ve taken plenty of swim lessons I still can’t swim. Well, I can manage the length of a pool but I then need 10 minutes to catch my breath. I’m not an efficient swimmer. If I’m ever stranded more than 75 feet from the coast line then I’m done for.