At a young age he was strongly influenced by his father’s wish to enter the senior service – the Navy – and his father’s disappointment when he was found ineligible. The health problems that made his father give up that dream exposed Matt to the Cy-Fair Volunteer Fire Department and as he grew up he learned the faces of the emergency responders and fire-fighters of Station 8 who, on numerous occasions, saved his father’s life. As a Boy Scout and Eagle Scout he met many boys whose fathers were in the fire service, and saw the strong family ties that develop.

Watching those men and women, and watching the fire-fighter fathers of his friends, Matt was naturally drawn to the fire department as his first service. When he visited Station 8 after graduating high school in 2002, familiar faces welcomed him as a volunteer. He signed up for college and started his degree in Fire Protection. He started working for the West I-10 Fire department in communications while he was a volunteer at Cy-Fair, and only a few months after graduation, he qualified for Emergency Dispatch and started work in Cy-Fair. Over the next few years he went to school and gained life experience while working and continuing to volunteer at Cy-Fair. His days and nights were filled with serving the community, and in building the strong relationships that marks the fire service. He quickly became the "'01" or training lieutenant at Station 11, and attained my Fire Commission from the State of Texas.

Fire fighting and emergency dispatch take discipline, sacrifice and mental and physical toughness. Matt felt he could give more. In June 2007, Matt followed one of his uncles into the Marines. He shipped to MCRD San Diego then to the School of Infantry at Camp Pendleton California. Matt made the decision to become an infantry weapons specialist, and chose his specialty carefully to fit into his life plan, which was forming. After 28 weeks of excruciating training, and only one day of leave, Matt shipped out to Camp Lejeune to join the 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, Lima Company, out of Alabama, to train for combat in Iraq. He was deployed with 3/23, Lima Company, as a machine gunner and was to spend eight months in and around Haditha, Iraq, living and sleeping in makeshift quarters, with few amenities and in constant danger.

Matt is back in the US now. He is again working in Cy-Fair Emergency Dispatch and volunteering as a fire-fighter. In addition, he is in a full time degree program at Oklahoma State, majoring in Fire Protection and Safety Technology Engineering. His ambition is to have a "big boy job" and to be in the ATF, Fire & Explosives Division – the arm of the law enforcement that investigates fire-fighter deaths across the country. All his experience builds his credentials to fulfil that ambition.

Matt says that after Iraq the work now "is like doing nothing." The bonds he built within the Marines are some of strongest he has known, and while the Cy-Fair is similar in discipline and dedication, he will tell you his "family is still in Iraq".

Matt returns to the ultimate public service in 2010 when his unit will be deployed to Afghanistan.