Joe is a Retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel, Pilot and is responsible for Corporate Emergency Plans for Delta Airlines. Joe is also an active golfer and grandfather of three beautiful little girls who love Spooky, their Hi Utsuri.
Joe's interest in the fish goes back to college days in the 1960’s, when he set up his first aquarium and began raising live bearers. Numerous anatomy courses taken and the eventual minor in biology left a lasting interest in the fish hobby. The first real exposure to Koi was on his first trip to Japan while assigned to the Far East in the military. One look and he was hooked. He swore to himself that someday he would raise and keep Koi. It wasn’t until after retirement from the US Army in 1993, some 20 years later, that Joe was able to build his first Koi pond.
The more experience Joe had with koi keeping, the more he wanted to learn. Joe completed the AKCA Koi Health Advisor Course. He has studied water quality extensively and served as subject matter expert at numerous Koi Shows. Joe has presented Water Quality for the Koi Health Seminar at The University of Georgia for the past several years. He completed enough continued education credits to achieve the Master KHA Certification, one of only 6 in the USA.