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I am originally from Jefferson, New York, a small town in the northern Catskills of central New York. I served in the 82nd Airborne division of the US Army for three and a half years before entering college. During that time I spent six months in Egypt on the Sinai Peninsula as part of the Multinational Force & Observers upholding the Camp David Accords of 1978. After the military I backpacked Europe for three and a half months before entering college. It was at this time that I “found” geography. I earned my B.S.(2002) in history and geography from the State University of New York College at Oneonta. I received my Master’s (2004) and Ph.D. (2008) at The Pennsylvania State University. My research interests include historical geography, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), tourism, and service-learning. My dissertation examined patterns of connectivity in small-town America around the turn of the twentieth century. I utilized GIS to map and analyze historic hotel guest registers, local newspapers, business invoices, as well as diaries. Other research topics include: historical geography of the bottled water industry, traveling vaudeville and circus routes, small-town heritage tourism, study abroad and service learning.