I graduated in 2003 from Cathedral where I participated in basketball all four years. I was on the varsity basketball team my sophomore through senior year. During my senior year campaign, I was profiled by the El Paso Times several times and I was the recipient of several awards, including the Time Warner Co-Player of the Year, El Paso Times first team all-city and being named El Paso’s Mr. Basketball. I was also invited to play in several all city and all state basketball games after the season concluded.

After attending St. Patrick’s Catholic school from Pre-K to 8th grade, my parents decided to send me to Cathedral to continue my Catholic education. There was never a question about where would attend high school given Cathedral’s great academic reputation and its general reputation in the community for graduating great and accomplished men.

My most cherished moments while at Cathedral are those that I spent with my basketball teammates. We had great success all four years and to this day I look back very fondly on the moments that we lived and the memories that were created as a member of the basketball team. The thing that I miss the most about my time at Cathedral is the camaraderie and friendships.

After graduating from Cathedral and receiving multiple university and college acceptances throughout the country, I chose to attend Boston College where I received graduated in 2007 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. Thereafter, I chose to pursue my lifelong dream of attending law school and came back home to Texas to attend The University of Texas School of Law where I graduated with Honors. Upon graduation from law school, I accepted a job in New York City with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, one of the most well-known and respected law firms in the country.

During my first year in New York City, Simpson opened a Houston office and after completing my first year my wife and I decided to come back home to Texas so that I could be a resident of the Houston office. I currently work as a Finance Associate and as of the beginning of 2016, I completed my fifth year with the firm. The time that I spent at Cathedral helped me grow as an individual and helped me learn that achieving your goals requires hard work and dedication to your craft. I have continued to use these lessons in my current job.

“What are you proudest of?”
Professionally, I am most proud of graduating from one of the best law schools in the country and doing well enough to end up working at a highly competitive and prestigious firm like Simpson Thacher where I have been able to do well. I believe that one must always have confidence in oneself, but the validation and payoff that I felt after graduating and starting a job at the firm is probably my proudest professional moment to date. Personally, I am very proud of the life that my wife and I have and my proudest personal moments are when my wife and I got married and had our two children. I look forward to the day that I can tell you that my proudest moments are things which I saw my children achieve in their lives.

“What lesson from Cathedral do you carry with you?”
Lessons that I think Cathedral teaches you are treat everyone with respect and work hard to achieve what you want in life. To this day I try and keep both lessons in mind on a day to day basis.

“Do you have a message (lesson/observation) for a current Cathedral student?”
My message to current Cathedral students would be to not sell themselves short and follow their dreams and work hard to achieve their goals. There is no substitute for hard work. One can have the brains, but without the hard work someone will eventually top them with a combination of brains and hard work. I find that a lot of people seem to fall prey to the mentality that they might not be good enough or that they don’t belong in the big city because they are from a smaller relatively unknown town in West Texas, but I would urge all of the students to think big, work hard and strive for what they want in life.