Tony’s educational experiences were greatly different from most Americans. Being raised in a military family, Tony’s nontraditional educational background included attending three different elementary schools, two different middle schools, and three different high schools in four different states. He accredits his successes in college to a well rounded understanding of the extreme differences he found in educational approaches and interpretations of educational facts rendered in the different high schools he attended.  Tony attended High school in Lisbon Main, San Diego California and Memphis Tennessee.  In college Tony used his past educational experiences to explore methods of how to join common threads of the three different educational approaches to express views that appeared to him to be universal beliefs.  He feels that the theories he rendered in his class discussions with the other adult students were accepted by the large majority of them reaffirming his belief that his opinions were closely related to common views and the majority voice.

Tony continually attended college for twenty years by taking classes at night and between his many military deployments. He designed his educational experiences to prepare himself to become a representative that can recognize the needs of his community and the nation as a whole. Tony further stated that he felt that the instruction from his professors were less of an influence on him than the opinions of the other students. Although he recognizes that the facts of the issues studied were important he enjoyed more so the speculation of how not to repeat poor actions of the past and how to solve the difficult issue of moving forward in a technically globalized world while maintaining a traditional American life style.

Having worked as a police officer, detective, customs agent and antiterrorist specialist, Tony’s bachelors’ degree in Law Enforcement assisted him in leading fellow officers to perform their duties with the highest standards under his mentorship.

During Tony’s time in Washington his position made him responsible for assessing Antiterrorism readiness, community resourcing and infrastructure security needs for over 70 American communities. To affirm the fact that he is considered an expert on homeland security issues Tony completed another bachelor’s degree in Homeland Security, which led to his thorough reporting of many vulnerability assessment results used by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the office of the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff to establish the way ahead for the assessed communities.  Tony’s experience with his reporting of national security vulnerabilities broadened his understanding of the shortfalls found in congressional decision making methods.

Upon returning home from Washington to Missouri Tony completed an additional Bachelors of Science degree in the liberal arts which he felt he needed to better develop his understanding of the general educational subjects. He then went on to complete a Master’s degree in Education with a focus on curriculum design. Tony believes that the most important reform in the nation today is to redesign the applicability of our current educational system. His studies and peer validation during the completion of this degree shaped his beliefs on national concerns.