About the Artist

Like so many boys growing up, I had always hoped to someday be able to make a living doing what I enjoyed so much......being outdoors, and anything having to do with nature. My growing passion for animals in any form, and my obsession with fishing built a foundation and a wonderful understanding to all the ways to enjoy the outdoors and everything in it. I loved to draw and paint, and spent countless hours learning to put what I had seen on paper. Fish were a favorite subject and specimens were readily available at the docks in Oyster Bay, LI. “Sagamore Hill”, Teddy Roosevelt’s home was just around the corner, and it was there, after many trips to view his trophies, that my interest in taxidermy spurred a lifelong passion.

Trips to the American Museum of Natural History, the Bronx Zoo and Coney Island Aquarium became very frequent, and I could not wait for my next lesson from the Northwestern School of Taxidermy to arrive in the mail. Road kills were never left without examination, and my salvaged fly tying materials were steadily turning into a nice collection of skins, tails, wings and feathers.

By ninth grade, we moved from LI, NY to Cumberland, Maryland. Great mountain fishing as well as turkey and deer hunting was everywhere in Western Maryland, and I did as much as possible.

After graduation in 1971, I moved to Ocean City, Maryland and landed a mate job on a charter boat and then a commercial long- liner. It was there, that the thought of doing taxidermy for money first came to mind. Countless offshore game fish mounts went to the freezers of Pfluger and Reese, two well-known fish taxidermy studio’s in Florida. It was then that I started to learn to mold fish. Winters were spent hunting ducks and the wild Sika Deer of Assateague Island. I had plenty of specimens to practice and learn on and knew then that I wanted to open a taxidermy business.

In 1979, I moved from Ocean City to Kent Island, Maryland on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. This area was then a Goose hunting mecca, and hunters from everywhere came to hunt the Canada and Snow geese. Maryland’s eastern shore, is also known for its heavy racked trophy Whitetail Deer.

That year, I opened Kent Island Taxidermy, and became a Maryland deer checking station. I was off and running and there was no lack of work. The combination of my fishing charter business and new taxidermy business worked very well together.

Besides my 100 ton ocean masters captains license, I was also a New York State and West Virginia licensed guide. I ran sea duck hunting trips on the Chesapeake during the fall hunting season and float trips in my McKenzie River boat for Salmon, Steelhead and Trout in upstate New York. Many of my clients hunted and fished worldwide and I learned how important networking was to a successful business. This brought me species from around the world, I became a licensed Importer / Exporter, and the first USDA approved establishment in the state of Maryland.

The opportunity to preserve so many diverse species has and continues to be a very rewarding challenge. It had always been my intention to maintain control over the technical and artistic aspects of taxidermy and animal preservation.

From start to finish, it was my goal and has been to maintain a sole proprietorship. Every completed trophy is totally done by me, technically sound, anatomically accurate and artistically pleasing. Anything is possible, and I look forward and enjoy pushing the limits of “taxidermy”, as a respected art form. I love my job, and love what I do...even after all these years...and look forward to many more years of taxidermy, preparation and animal artistry.