From Rocket Scientist to Porn Star

From Rocket Science to Porn?

The Late Bloomer Syndrome...

I was your normal kid with a normal middle class upbringing... and I loved playing baseball and other sports, and did well academically. But when High School came along, my friends and classmates hit adolescence, and I became a seriously late bloomer.

First College, Then Rocket Science...

I played a year of Junior College baseball, went to a small 4-year college in North Texas, and went to graduate school at Texas A&M University. I got bachelors and masters degrees in physics, and started working at NASA's Johnson Space Center as a Space Shuttle systems engineer in Mission Operations.

After a few years of inspiring times at Johnson Space Center, living a fantasy of sorts, I started to get extremely bored... to the point where I started my own little fitness/personal training business on the side. The business took off, and after 6 months I quit my engineering job and pursued my fitness career full time. That lasted another 3 years, until I decided to get into porn.

Being Drawn to Porn...

The decision to get into porn was a 3 year process itself. I visited my first strip club when I was 24, and "discovered" porn shortly afterwards, when I was in graduate school.

Fast forward to when I was working at NASA...

I went to see a few porn stars perform at strip clubs in Houston, and one of them was Keisha. I'll leave the details out, but we talked for a while, she thought I was a gentleman, and that I might bring something positive to porn, so she gave me her phone # and told me that if I was ever serious about getting into porn, that I'd have to move to LA first, and that she'd help out.

Three years later, while still personal training, I decided it was time for LA. I sent some letters with photos to a handful of people, including Keisha (I had lost her phone number), and she responded to me via email. Keisha and I corresponded by email, and she filled me in on the pros and cons about porn as a career... and from that I decided it was worth a try. After I was satisfied that I'd be able to make it in LA without selling my soul, I sent another handful of letters/photos to the companies and agents that she suggested.

Coming to Los Angeles...

About a week or so later, Jim South, the agent of agents in porn at the time, called and told me that I should come to his offices (World Modeling) in LA for a "talent call" on May 23rd. I flew to LA and met Jim and the masses of porn stars and company representatives who were there to meet the new talent. I was well-received, but everyone told me they'd hire me AFTER I had proven myself working for someone else, and AFTER I moved to LA. My trip to LA lasted just that day, and I flew back to Houston early the next morning.

Jim South took an uncharacteristic gamble on me as new male talent and booked me for a fairly "unrisky" scene for the following month. The scene involved oral sex with Nikki Sin, and only softcore footage was to be shown. The scene went well, and I was very happy to spend my BIRTHDAY working on my first porn job with Nikki Sin! It was a coincidence that they booked it for June 19th, my birthday, but when Jim's office called me in Houston to see if I could fly out for the scene on that date, I wasn't about to miss my first opportunity.

After that the word got out that I'd done my first scene, and within a couple weeks I had a couple of shoots lined up for early July. That's when I decided to make the big move.

Making the move to LA...

On July 6th I started the trek from Houston to LA in my Chevy Blazer packed full of everything important. I rolled into LA the following afternoon, and checked into a hotel near World Modeling. The next morning was the shoot... with Shayla LaVeaux for VCA's "Shayla's Swim Party". And after that shoot I started meeting more people and getting more work.

I stayed at the hotel for 4 nights, and moved into a rental house that Suze Randall, a renowned men's magazine photographer, owned near Santa Monica. I was to shoot for Suze with Margo Stevens for a boy/girl layout on Friday of that first week, and Suze asked me where I lived. I told her I was staying in a hotel until I found a place, and that's when she offered her place for a couple weeks.

While at Suze's place, I found the closest gyms to be in Venice. Well, the gyms in Venice happen to be amongst the best anywhere, and so I decided to look for a more permanent place to live in the West LA/Santa Monica area.

During those two weeks I continued to meet more directors, photographers, porn stars, go to events, and so on... and I found my first "home" in LA. It was a town home in Brentwood, and I rented a room from a great lady who owned the town home. I told her that I was a personal trainer/actor at first, and within a month or so she figured out that there was more to the story due to my schedule and vagueness about events, but I came clean about everything and she was fine with it all. We became great friends, and kept in touch for quite a while after that.

The rest of the story...

I worked for about 6 months, doing roughly 30 video scenes and 30 boy/girl magazine shoots, before another opportunity called. While I was having the time of my life, I went back to Texas for a year to pursue a health/fitness related business opportunity, with the intention of coming back to Los Angeles as soon as possible.

The business in Texas took just over a year, and I made my way back to LA and to the adult industry... and have been working in movies, magazines, cable tv and more, ever since, which has led to producing a handful of movies, building websites, and developing a web-related business.

I'll continue in the adult industry as long as I'm having fun... I stay busy working for adult film companies, Playboy TV, Spice TV, various cable projects, B movies, occasionally writing for various magazines and websites, and now managing a select group of websites and developing internet/website related products.

A career change from rocket scientist to porn star was quite a transition... and it was a rush to be accepted into porn, and immersed in quite a different industry and lifestyle. Making the move to LA was exciting and full of uncertainty, but it was one of those things that I would have regretted NOT doing... I was just drawn to it. And the decision is one that I'd make again in a heartbeat. That was my experience, and one I wouldn't have done any other way!