He graduated with honours in Finance from Illinois State University in the U.S. Before arriving in the Baltics in 1992, he worked for Caterpillar, Inc. in their Treasury department in the U.S. He is the former Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Latvia, the Foreign Investors' Council in Latvia and continues to chair Ronald McDonald House Charities Latvia, which he founded in 2007. He resides in Latvia with his wife and children, and speaks Latvian, Estonian, bad Russian and worse French.