About Me

I was born in Pittsburgh in 1969 and raised on a farm in Western Pennsylvania. In 1991, I graduated with a degree in history from Geneva College, a Christian liberal arts college in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. I received a Master of Library Science from the University of Pittsburgh and worked as a public services librarian for four years. I subsequently pursued graduate work in history, first receiving an M. A. from Duquesne University in 1997 and a Ph. D. from the University of Iowa in 2002. Since 2003, I have taught at Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, Illinois, in the southwestern suburbs of Chicago.

My primary field of interest is the American West and rural history. I previously published The Farm Press, Reform, and Rural Change, 1895-1920 and edited Almost Pioneers: One Couple’s Homesteading Adventure in the West. I have taught courses on American History, Western Civilization, American Colonial and Revolutionary History, Twentieth Century America, historical methods, and thinking and writing.

I was Chair of the History Department at Trinity from 2005 to 2021, and I have served as Director of the Foundations Program at Trinity since 2015. I became Dean of Faculty in 2022. I live a block south of the city of Chicago in Blue Island Illinois, with my wife Paula. We have been married 30 years, and we have four adult children, Deborah, Stephen, Benjamin, and Daniel, and one granddaughter, Bethany. Paula and I enjoy reading nineteenth century fiction together, watching movies, and taking long walks in our neighborhood.