What has been your greatest professional accomplishment to date? What keeps you going?

Securing each child’s Permanent Resident card is a great accomplishment. It truly does not get any better than receiving that card and giving it to the child.

What keeps me going? Yoga. In fact, if I weren’t practicing law, I’d be running a yoga studio. That would give me a good excuse to wear yoga clothes and do yoga all day.

What’s your idea of a great vacation?

I love road trips! My husband and I like to plug in the electric cooler and hit the road. At last count, we had visited 43 Wisconsin state parks and 30 national parks. I am notorious for having multiple “tour” books and finding out-of-the-way attractions on our way to anywhere.

In recent years, we have spent a week every June at a cabin on Lake Kabetogama at Voyageurs National Park. That vacation involves not only a road trip, but also a week on a lake! I always look forward to sitting by the water, reading, enjoying the scenery, and going out in our fishing boat. That’s my idea of a great vacation. Of course, it’s even greater if I catch a few walleye for dinner.

You’ve been working in the child welfare field for 17 years. What drew you to that practice area and what keeps you there?

I have been in the child welfare field since 1997. My first job was as a social worker for a child welfare agency in Milwaukee County, during a massive transition from the Milwaukee County Department of Human Services to the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare. I’d always wanted to be a social worker, but I could not have anticipated the lifelong impact that job would have on my life. I envied the attorneys advocating for parents and youth in the court proceedings, and eventually enrolled at Marquette University Law School, fully intending to practice in child welfare.

The business of child welfare is stressful. The families I worked with had experienced so many traumas, but were resilient in ways I never imagined possible. Since my original entry-level social worker position, I’ve spent the last 17 years working in many capacities in the child welfare system. I was a treatment foster parent for seven years during and after law school, and practiced as a guardian ad litem, and as defense counsel for CHIPS parents, TPR parents, and CHIPS children.

Although the circumstances can weigh heavy on my heart, I have found it much harder to not work in this system than to be immersed in it. I truly enjoy my work as a public defender, and cannot imagine a career outside of Milwaukee County’s child welfare system.

What is your favorite part of Wisconsin?

Twenty-two years ago my wife and I purchased 87 acres of land in Adams County, outside of Oxford, just 62 miles from our home in Madison. At the time, it was undeveloped, so we camped for 10 years, saving our money to eventually build a beautiful timber-frame vacation home.

This land is truly our slice of heaven. It has 1,600 feet of shore line on Goose Lake. Two years ago, I became the chair of the Goose Lake Watershed District, a public entity charged with maintaining the health of this very special lake. In addition, it has acres of virgin oak forest with towering oaks, many of which are probably 100-150 years old.

Much of our shoreline is actually wetlands that provide an ample natural setting for sandhill cranes to nest as well as a myriad of other wildlife. When we bought the land, it had two parcels of old farmland that had not been farmed in many years. We rent one to a nearby farmer to grow organic hay for his cows. Approximately 12 years ago we planted 2,500 spruce and pine trees on the less farmable parcel, which has turned into an incredibly beautiful forest that needs thinning every year.

For a sense of our place, just read Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac. This classic about Leopold’s nearby shack and surrounding land accurately describes our slice of heaven.

Complete the sentence: I never leave home without ___, because ___.

I never leave home without my sense of humor because it gives me perspective on the many types of situations I encounter in the course of the day. When I practiced law, I found that a bit of appropriate well-placed humor could defuse the severity that often accompanies litigation. My move to a career in federal law enforcement almost 13 years ago has reinforced my belief that life is too short to be serious all the time. The ability to laugh can lighten a tough day or a tense situation in so many ways that I consider humor to be an essential item to carry.

What’s your favorite nonwork activity?

My favorite “nonwork” activity is the work I grew up with: working at auctions! My father and grandfather are auctioneers, so I grew up traveling around the state to work at auctions. We sold cows, tractors, farm equipment, hay, fence posts, and household items, like grandma’s dishes. Occasionally we would sell real estate at auction, and a few times we sold airplanes.

The auction business is still a big part of my life. I frequently get asked to auctioneer at charity events. I have set up impromptu auctions at a client’s request and “sold off” items within the client’s office. My family auctioned off the first dance with my bride at my wedding (the winning bid was more than I could afford). And most of my possessions were bid on and bought at an auction.

Folks often ask me why I didn’t become an auctioneer. The truth, I tell ’em, is that I’m third in a line of fast talkers, so becoming a lawyer was a natural step!

What is your most relaxing (or favorite) vacation?

Any vacation that includes my wife Tonya and my children is my favorite. My most relaxing vacation, though, had to be my six-week trip to Australia and New Zealand in 1999. I had just left my firm in Ohio and was moving to Wisconsin to become chief litigation counsel for what became U.S. Bank. On a lark, I asked my new boss to give me two months to goof off before starting. I got a thumb’s up! I forwarded my mail to my parents, gave them my checkbook to pay bills, and caught a plane to Auckland.

For that two-month period, I had no home and no job. I had not yet married. I was alone – completely – on the other side of the world to do whatever I wanted in one of the most beautiful places in the world. It was as close as I have ever been to being off the grid, and that is really relaxing.