In my spare time…

In addition to my university service and scholarly activities I am also engaged in various community efforts, participate in our local faith community, and pursue personal hobbies.

Mack Brady Clinic
Budding goalkeepers at the 2015 Mack Brady Soccer Clinic.

As  mentioned in the introduction, my wife Elizabeth and I have two children, our daughter, who is a graduate of Penn State University and Cambridge University, and our son Mack. Sadly, Mack passed away in 2012, just two weeks before his 9th birthday. Our friends and family helped establish the Mack Brady Memorial Penn State Soccer Fund that supports and develops goalkeepers on the Penn State Men’s Soccer Program. Each January the team also hosts an annual clinic for youth, bringing together the university and the community in a celebration of Mack’s life.  I am also the faculty mentor for Penn State’s Men’s Soccer team and attend most games, taking pictures from the sidelines.

Within our community I have worked with both the Red Cross and the United Way. I was a board member of our local Red Cross chapter (2013-15) and I chaired the 2011-12 Penn State United Way capital campaign.

In 2015 I was asked to join a group of leaders from local organizations that help people through grief in order to create a unified community program. “Learning to Live” is  a collaborative partnership between several Penn State units and Centre County community organizations and businesses whose goal is to encourage individuals to share their stories of how they learned to live with loss.

Photography is my primary hobby. I learned how to take pictures on a manual Pentax SLR when I was just 7 years old and developed my skills through our local 4-H club. My activity waned during college and graduate school, but as digital technology took over I returned to the hobby of my youth; it is perfect for someone who travels frequently! You can see a sample of my photographs on my photoblog.

Most recently I have fulfilled a childhood dream of learning how to SCUBA dive. Locations have so far been limited to pools, rivers, and quarries in central Pennsylvania but I look forward to tropical climes in the future and combining both hobbies!

Finally, I am a priest in the Episcopal Church and Canon Theologian in the Episcopal Diocese of Lexington. There are a great many parishes without a priest and it is a great privilege to serve in these communities through preaching and teaching as well as leading retreats and workshops.