Hi! This is where I am supposed to brag about having done something so amazing with the life God and Christ gave me that even James Bond wishes he were me. Well, I have a wonderful wife, successful kids, and amazing grandkids-eat your heart out, 007!

Otherwise, nothing earth-shattering, but I’m not dead yet. Under cover of if you’ve done it it ain’t bragging, here is what you might find to be circumlocution.

In college I told Dad, who has been a CPA since computers got their own buildings with climate control and spreadsheets required a plugin called a pencil, I would be anything but a CPA. I have been a CPA since 1984, and have a degree in business from the University of Texas at Dallas and an M.B.A. from the University of Texas at Tyler. (After we married in Southern California where I grew up, my young bride, Mary, said she would follow me anywhere but Texas. We have been here since 1979-must be a lesson about bold prognostications in here somewhere.)

I have enjoyed variety in my career mostly in finance-related areas. I’ve been a grunt, a manager in industry and education, and even a small college assistant basketball coach. I was GM of a fulfillment house for about a year with around 170 great teammates (a consulting gig that escalated during a client’s transition period). That experience led me to love the study of leadership.

Not a typical beancounter, I can’t help but think outside the box. So I am better suited to be self-unemployed. My Dad, Melton, and I hung out a shingle in 1996 and have tried to help a variety of small businesses become successful by providing accounting, tax and (verbiage alert) visionary, creative services including strategic planning, leadership coaching, engineering pay-for-performance plans, and the delivery of inspiring leadership and management training.

Outside of the most important things-Faith and Family-my passions are basketball, music, writing, and teaching.

Themes that excite me include teamwork, lifting and nourishing the indomitable human spirit (a gift from Creation), the unique beauty and talent of each human being (more gifts from Above), and leadership that inspires others to reach their own potential by fulfilling their calling (now and forever in the God Family).

I am privileged to serve on the board of Foundation Outreach International— a wonderful, Christ-centered non-profit organization sponsoring humanitarian projects around the world. Check it out at http://www.foundationoutreachintl.org. Church life is very important to Mary and me and I am thankful to occasionally be a lay preacher.

My quest to fulfill my personal calling has led me to launch the Center for Inspiring Leaders, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to equipping people to lead with and under inspiration.

My first book, 4 Key Cs to Running an Outstanding Small Business, is available on Amazon. All proceeds, $42.27 so far, are dedicated to my beer and Twinkie fund.

Other than baptism, my greatest blessing is my unbelievably supportive and committed wife, Mary Jean. She put her dreams on hold so we could raise three great kids, Danielle, Kristine, and Stephen, here in the East Texas woods. She is now the world’s greatest Nana and, thankfully, uses her administrative skills and shrewd eye to work with our firm.

Now you know what circumlocution means: the use of many words when few will do. So this wasn’t a complete waste of time.