Where I grew up
Born in Beaumont. Spent summers at my grandfather's small-engine shop. Came to Houston for trade school at Lone Star College's North Harris campus in 2008. The first hood I cleaned was on the line at a chain pizza kitchen on West Bellfort the following spring; I have not been off a roof since.
How I got onto a hood
I worked twelve years at a regional fire-protection company. The work was steady and the records were sloppy. We routinely closed out a quarterly route on paper without anyone having actually seen the inside of a vertical duct run. The day I read NFPA 96 §11.4 end-to-end and realized how much of what we were doing was theatre, I started writing what is now the Updraft field-record format on a yellow legal pad.
What I work on
Route 1 covers the East End and Third Ward. I have eleven restaurants on quarterly cleaning, two food halls on monthly, and the new-build commissioning workload. I am a Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation–licensed Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Contractor (M-39184), which is the regulatory tag the city wants on a balanced-airflow report.
Outside the bay
I serve on the East End District small-business council. I cook at home and have not eaten at a chain restaurant on purpose in eleven years. I am still trying to learn enough Spanish to keep up with my own dispatcher.