My story, like the stories of so many others, began with the dreams of my parents. While their heritage and culture were deeply rooted in their native Dominican Republic, they made the decision to migrate to America when I was seven months old. Committed to a better future for their four children, they sacrificed comfort and familiarity to move to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and later, South Florida, to live the American Dream.

I was trained and certified as a lifeguard at age 14, and hired through the Milwaukee public school system as a lifeguard by the time I was fifteen years old. In my senior year of high school, my family relocated to South Florida. One year later, I started my first business, Rescue-101, providing the American Red Cross Lifeguard Training course to teach others to become certified lifeguards, training them about health, safety and crisis prevention so they could effectively react to situations.