A 1981 graduate of Akron North High School, he earned his journalism degree from Kent State University in 1985. He has worked as a copy editor and staff writer for the Akron Beacon Journal since 1997. Before that, he worked as a copy editor, columnist and features editor at the Canton Repository. He is the author of The Rest Is History: True Tales from Akron's Vibrant Past (The University of Akron Press, 2012) and Lost Akron (The History Press, 2015). He and his wife, Susan, live in Hinckley, Ohio, with their puppy girl, Cinders, and bunny girl, Katie.