Chris grew up near Des Moines, Iowa, on a gravel road between Hartford and Carlisle in the 70s and 80s. Right out of high school, he enlisted into the Army and immediately participated in Operations Desert Shield and Storm serving his time in Iraq during the Gulf War in 1991.
Afterwards, he lived in Germany working and learning the language. He returned to the United States to join up with the Army Reserves while working with the Department of the Army full time and attending college part time. His duties as a Broadcast Journalist allowed him to travel throughout the United States and visit places like Korea, Panama, and Guatemala.
In 2003, he received a commission through the Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia. He eventually completed college earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Business and graduating with honors through Upper Iowa University (Cum Laude). He deployed again for Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004-2005.
He wanted to utilize some of the skills he obtained from his degree and created a small online presence with a small brick and mortar retail location in Des Moines, Iowa while also working for the Army full-time. He built the website himself from scratch and gained a good understanding on how to successfully gain site visits and customers. For a little over a year he successfully sold his wares all over the world as Des Moines’s only magic shop. He ran this niche operation until his son was born and to prepare for another deployment supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom from 2010-2011.
His last duty station was Fort McCoy where he lived in Sparta, Wisconsin, working as a Logistics and Planning Officer for large scale military training operations. There, he retired as a senior Captain and moved to La Crosse, WI.
He then worked a little over a year with Thrivent Financial as an Advisor until his most recent change of employment to Marine Credit Union working in the loan processing department. Chris left Marine Credit Union just after a year of working in order to pursue the idea and concept of Bucket of Bread.
Chris currently spends his spare time frequently visiting both the Winona and Des Moines areas to visit family and friends. He also attempts to take time to try his best at understanding how to learn the guitar and of course baking.
During a deployment in Northern Iraq from 2004-05, Chris lived on an Iraqi Army military installation and found himself on one occasion learning and helping to bake bread with the bakers who made the bread for the Iraqi Army.