Ducks and dogs have been in my veins since birth. I was and raised in the rice fields of South Louisiana, in Ville Platte LA. My dad owned a Polaris dealership, and I was constantly interacting with farmers and duck hunters from an early age. After my dad sold his dealership in 1997, we relocated to Diamondhead MS, where I graduated from St Stanislaus College Prep in 2003. I began working towards an Engineering degree at Mississippi State University in Starkville MS.

After my time in Starkville, I got into the oil and gas industry. I started at the bottom and worked my way up, to eventually relocating to Northeast Pennsylvania to work for Chief Oil and Gas, as a Production Foreman.

My love for ducks and dogs always influenced my decisions. In 2009 I began my hand at training my personal dogs. The years following, I began to perfect my craft. After learning how to train and spending time with various pros, I began purchasing puppies that I could start and sell for profit. Every year I would purchase 2 – 3 puppies that I would train and then sell when duck season came around. I paid for a lot of Christmas’s with selling started dogs.

In 2014 I met my beautiful wife, Zowie West. She encouraged me to do what I love, and I began training for profit. Initially I was training part time. I had trained a few gun dogs at a time, but I was specializing in aggression rehab/obedience dogs. These dogs taught me a lot about dog behavior and instincts. As my reputation grew, I began to get more and more gun dogs, which lead to the most important decision of my life, which was to leave the oil and gas industry, to train dogs on a full-time basis.

In 2017 my wife and I decided to relocate back home to Louisiana and started Iron Sky Retrievers LLC. I knew that my passion was young dogs and developing them the right way to be future superstars. I started out specializing in young field trail dogs and young hunt test dogs. Of the first crew, which consisted of 6 dogs, 3 ended up competing in all age field trails, 2 became Master Hunters, and 1 laid on our couch! From there we began to develop many many competitive dogs, including over 40 Master Hunters, and countless Senior and Junior Hunters. Before long we were operating a kennel that kept 45 dogs year-round in training, doing obedience, gun dogs, and competitive hunt test dogs. In 2021, we owned the youngest National Derby Championship finalist in the country “Teddy”. We also qualified 14 Master Hunters for Master National that same year, and accumulated 104 Master passes between January 1 and December 31. In 2022 we had 3 more QAA dogs, one dog with 8 derby points, 74 Master passes, and qualified 11 more dogs for Master National.

Things continued to blossom at Iron Sky Retrievers, however in the fall of 2022, the rare opportunity to come to work at Castile Creek Kennels, with Lyle Steinman, presented itself. In November 2022, we sold the Iron Sky Retrievers LLC business and relocated to Stewartsville MO, to become part of the Castile Creek Kennels team. I’m proud of everything I’ve accomplished in my past but look forward to greatness in the future.