My parents met when Dad was in law school at the University of North Dakota and Mom was an undergraduate student. I was born in Dad’s hometown, Watford City, North Dakota, and grew up next to the family farm about 15 miles from town. My father was a lawyer and, by then, the McKenzie County State’s Attorney. He kept the latter role until late 2013 and worked hard every day until we lost him in November 2021. Mom stayed home with me and my little sister at first, then went back to school and earned degrees from Minot State University and North Dakota State University. She worked as the Guidance Counselor at Watford City High School from about my Sophomore year until her retirement in 2013.
When it was time to head off to college after graduating from Watford City High School, I had a few options but chose UND for a variety of reasons. My Mom was from Grand Forks but we didn’t have family left there by that time. I was comfortable with the city, the campus, and the Computer Science program I was enrolling in. The Red Pepper being a fixture of my life from childhood was a factor, as well.
I moved to Arizona and worked for a year before I decided to go to law school, part of that ongoing process of deciding what I wanted to be when I grew up. The College of William & Mary had offered to waive the application fee so I applied, got in, and decided to spend those years in Williamsburg, Virginia, where Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and other founding fathers had spent so much of their formative years. I developed an interest in American history during my years in Virginia that I wish I’d had when I was tested on the subject back in high school.
After law school, the climate and culture of North Dakota beckoned to me and I found a good job in Bismarck. I worked there from 2007 until 2011, when the partners of Johnson & Sundeen asked if I would consider moving to my hometown to join the team at both their firm and the McKenzie County State’s Attorney’s office. The Bakken oil boom had inundated them with a workload that remains, to this day, hard for me to describe.
At one point in my life, I thought I wouldn’t settle down in North Dakota. As I’ve grown, I have often appreciated the ironic humor in that thought. I now have a two-mile commute that goes past the site of my birth, the first house I lived in, the church I grew up in, and other walk-of-life landmarks. It has been a tremendous blessing to have the opportunity to plant my roots so close to where my story began.
My wife and I live close to Watford City with our daughter and two dogs that you might meet if you visit my office. I have a variety of hobbies, including music, aviation, and hiking in the Badlands with my Samoyed dogs Yeva and Umka. Some of the pictures on this site were taken during reflective hikes on the Maah Daah Hey and Long X Trails. My wife and I have published a children’s book called Yeva’s Adventures: The Missing Toys and hope to write more in the future.