First of all, thank you for visiting this website! The heart of Hilltop Chaplain Ministries is personal relationships and in that spirit, I would like to share with you a bit more about me—my history and how I came to have a passion for serving men behind bars.

I was born in Minneapolis and adopted as an infant. Only recently through DNA matches have I identified who my birth parents were (both are deceased so no chance to meet them). Our home was a non religious mostly stable home with what I call “average disfunction”! When I was in grade school and Middle School a zealous single mom on our block invited all of the neighborhood kids to Christian camps and church events. These events planted seeds in my life, and eventually at age 17, I made a personal commitment to surrender my life to Jesus Christ. The change was immediate. I found a joy and purpose greater than anything that came before.

In the ensuing college and graduate school years, I was intent on a career as a Bible scholar and professor, following in the footsteps on my adoptive father who was a university professor at California State University Los Angeles. Part of my seminary career involved serving as an intern in a church, and this turned into a full-time job, and my course veered from the academic world to the world of church ministry.

In 1980 I married my wife Kathrine, and we are still on our wonderful journey together, enjoying our life together and staying close to our two grown children. In my early years of ministry, I struggled with bouts of anxiety and depression, and over time realized that my father’s drinking and emotional isolation was at the root of this. Having an intimate emotional relationship with parents, and for men especially, with fathers, is vital for success in life, and not having this creates a real deficit. But through many avenues God provided guidance and healing for me through my years as a church pastor.

I served in two churches for a total of 25 years, and during that time wore many hats. For many years I was involved with single adults and people going through divorce, people who found it hard to fully integrate into church life. In many ways, these ministry years paved the way for me to work with incarcerated people, whose worth and talents are often overlooked in society. 

In 2008 I went through a painful layoff from the church I was serving at, in an affluent town in the Silicon Valley. At the time I was also a part-time Greek professor at Western Theological Seminary but that didn’t pay the bills. So, having accumulated years worth of construction experience remodeling my own homes, I obtained a general contractors license and ran a construction business for ten years. God was faithful to meet our needs as a family!

In late 2017, as a 60-year old man, I had doubts about ever returning to full-time ministry. Amazingly through some miraculous circumstances, I was offered the job of facility chaplain at the Santa Clara County Main Jail, a medium to maximum security men’s jail. I served there until April 30, 2024, when I retired and moved to Southern California. In my six years at the jail, we saw well over 100 men take the step of Christian baptism. Many more men made significant spiritual commitments and are now serving God in the community after release or in the state prisons where they are serving their sentences.

My current ministry to over 70 men in the state prison system, many who are serving life sentences, is really an extension of the ministry at the county jail. The majority of the men I serve do not have a mentor, role model, or pastor that is committed to them for the long haul. I desire to be that for these men and many others who are contacting me from the state prisons because of word-of-mouth referrals from the men I already know. I am excited about the future! Thank you for your prayers and support!