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I'm based in San Antonio and have over 25 years of broad-based business and legal experience as a performance management consultant, business coach, corporate trainer, attorney, and arbitrator. My diverse career has allowed me to hone an array of complementary skills and expertise that provides clients with a unique value proposition.

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People often ask me how being a consultant, a coach, and an attorney all work. A fair question, and I admit you don't see this every day. However, when you realize that lawyers have historically held themselves out as an "attorney and counselor at law," it starts to make sense. I found the " counselor " role not only a natural fit for me, but I saw how indispensable it is over the years. The best lawyers I've known understand that helping clients examine their motivations, fears, and desires is critical to success in all facets of a case, especially in achieving the best outcomes. 

 

Said simply, being an attorney has made me a better consultant and coach-- and vice versa. In my coaching and consulting practice, being a lawyer helps me take clients beyond good ideation, critical thinking, and self-reflection - and guide them to taking practical next steps, achieving desired goals and outcomes. Conversely, being a coach has helped me be a better lawyer. Learning to use powerful questions and creating a psychologically safe space for my legal clients helps develop better strategies and approaches that routinely lead to faster and better legal outcomes. 

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Let me share insights that summarize my unique professional career. 

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In the early 2000's I developed my performance management and executive coaching skills with RLG International, based in Vancouver, BC, where I worked in the pulp and paper industry and then in aerospace with Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth. With RLG, I learned how consulting and coaching could significantly accelerate desired business and organizational outcomes. Much of these gains in business results stemmed from working with leaders to grow their leadership. 

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Most recently, I spent 15 years with BNSF Railway (a Berkshire Hathaway Company), where I blended my advocacy, consulting, and coaching to yield consistent outstanding results in a 50,000 member organization. At BNSF, I cultivated important strategic operation relationships with labor organizations, provided leadership, conflict resolution, and negotiation training, and innovated employee engagement and performance systems. In 2018, I successfully launched NewVantage’s Leadership Circle methodology based on a need I realized within BNSF.  My work with NewVantage's Leadership Circles at BNSF received wide, positive acclaim from a broad range of internal business partners, achieving cultural change, talent retention, and positively impacting business results over the 18-month period in which the methodology was carried out at BNSF.  In my 25-year career, the Leadership Circle work at BNSF has been the most rewarding, and it launched Fireside.

 

As an attorney in Fort Worth with Brown, Proctor & Howell, I represented a wide range of clients, including Lloyd’s of London, State Farm, and several other business and commercial clients in the Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston markets. Previously, I worked in the Harris County Attorney's Office Trial Bureau, providing first-chair representation in eminent domain litigation.  With BNSF, I was a Carrier advocate in arbitration, handling thousands of cases over 15 years. I also regularly represented BNSF in multiple state and federal courts as an expert witness and a corporate representative. My oral and written advocacy skills are broad and effective. 

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The best part of my story, though, is my amazing family. My wife, Laura, and I have two sons at Texas A&M and a daughter in high school at San Antonio Christian School. Laura teaches 10th Grade English there as well. We recently moved to San Antonio from the DFW area and have sampled more Tex-Mex food than any family should have.