Born in Claryville, Kentucky his early school years were spent in a tiny one room school where he received a wonderful education. He was one of 27 graduates from St. Mary’s High School schooled by tough but caring nuns. At the University of Cincinnati, he received a BS in zoology (summa cum laude) and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi (a research honorary society), and Mensa. He went on to earn an MD degree, and train in Internal Medicine and Nephrology. He was one in a small group of physicians to become the first Board Certified in Emergency Medicine. During his time managing hospital emergency departments in Cincinnati, OH,. to continue to feed his enduring love of art, he completed a year-long educational program followed by an internship, to became a docent for the Cincinnati Museum of Art. Then he earned an MBA in finance anticipating a new avenue in his medical journey.
Eventually finding the ER environment beyond the needs of people needing care but not emergency care he founded Doctor's Urgent Care Offices (AMCARE) ... one of the first to introduce the concept of Urgent Care to the country with his facilities in Ohio and Kentucky. He put his MBA to work and with his two partners took AMCARE public on Wall Street and years later they went private with a leveraged buyout to regain control.
He also created and operated Decker Wines, a Napa and Sonoma producer of gold medal winning wines, distributed nationally. He realized he did not want to be a salesperson and discontinued this venture after five years.
He was a founding board member, Vice President, and Medical Director of TurtleWill, a foundation that built schools, organized mobile medical clinics, dug wells, made starter business loans and funded surgical care for burns, cleft palates, club feet and sponsored secondary education for teens ... all aiding the tribal peoples of Ethiopia, Mali and Niger.
With his growing passion for art, and the philosophy unquenched he attended and graduated from Christie's Masters in Contemporary Art and Connoisseurship Program in New York City while living in Manhattan for a year followed by a six- week internship in Venice. He then earned a M. Phil in visual arts and philosophy from IDSVA (Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts), studying in Berlin, Sienna, Venice, Paris , New York City and at Brown University. Later both he and his wife received honorary PhD’s in visual arts and philosophy from ISDVA.
He has been married to Carol Scribner for over 35 years and they have two sons, Peter and Chris and two grandchildren, Amy and Michael. He and his wife make their home in Sedona, AZ. where they went into transition ( not retirement). They passionately love to travel and have visited over 125 countries. “We have met many wonderful people around the world; many we have ‘adopted’ as part of our extended International Family. Now we are embarking on another fantastic adventure with great enthusiasm, my first novel… with a second on the way. We never say retired, but ‘in transition’ and ‘we’re not done yet’ … words we live by.”
