I was born in Greer, SC in 1975 to Ed and Diane Gibson. Remarkably, they lived in the same house in upstate South Carolina for almost 30 years, so my siblings—Blake and Deanna—and I were well-rooted. I finally left the state after graduating from Clemson University in 1997 with a B.S. in Geology. From 1997 to 2005 I worked on two advanced degrees at The Pennsylvania State University, receiving my M.S. in Geosciences in 1999 and my Ph.D. in Soil Science in 2005. In 1999, I befriended a fellow Geosciences graduate student, Amy Whitaker, and before too long we became more than friends! Luckily, she accepted my proposal and we have been married since 2003. We were both very excited when Amy accepted a job offer to work as a professional Geologist in Houston, so we left Penn State the day after her Ph.D. graduation in December of 2004. Currently, I am acclimating to life after academia here in Houston, where I have become interested in local environmental efforts. Aside from volunteering with CLEAN, I am looking for work in the environmental industry.