Meet Stephen

Not always. I became interested in science at the end of high school and worked in a research lab during college. After graduation and a considerable amount of deliberation, I realized that I had an interest in combining science with public service and criminal justice. Pursuing that interest led me to a position with the California Department of Justice’s Jan Bashinski Laboratory in the Bay Area. At that lab, I trained as a DNA Analyst and worked in the Databank Unit, which handled and submitted DNA profiles to the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS).

I had a great desire to perform casework in Forensic Biology, so that brought me back to Arizona, where I worked as a casework DNA analyst with the Arizona Department of Public Safety, first in Phoenix, then in Tucson. During my tenure there, I also worked as a contract assessor with the National Forensic Science Technology Center. With them, I worked as part of an audit team, performing audits of DNA laboratories around the United States. With my work as an auditor, I also helped with teaching a few courses in Forensic Biology topics at several labs.

Back in college, my friends and I used to come to San Diego every Spring Break, and we even took an impromptu trip out here one weekend to see Lifehouse in concert at the House of Blues downtown. That was a wild trip, which included driving late at night down the 8 during a tumbleweed storm and staying at a motel where the shower floors were painted black. So, I have always had the pull to live in California, and I accepted a position with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department in 2012. I first worked in the Forensic Biology Unit, but I had the fortunate opportunity to branch out and become a part of the Crime Scene Investigations Unit. With this team, I responded to numerous crime scenes to assist with death investigations. I performed trajectory analysis, bloodstain pattern analysis, and shooting and crime scene reconstruction. In 2015, I transferred to the Firearms Analysis Unit, where I performed analysis on firearms-related evidence and contributed to the ATF’s National Integrated Ballistic Information Network with their Integrated Ballistics Identification System (IBIS/NIBIN).

One thread in the forensics industry that I kept seeing pop up was a lack of quality leadership and management training for forensic professionals in the United States. I have personally experienced poor leadership in all the labs I worked at, and I heard stories of poor leadership decisions and their effects all the time.

These stories crop up in the news from time to time as well. So, to help make a difference and to help leaders and aspiring leaders in forensics do the best job that they can for the public, whom we serve, I enrolled in an MBA degree program with Quantic and selected a few specializations that focused on leadership, management, and strategy.

During my studies, I founded the Forensic Leaders Training Center on the principle of improving the state of leadership in forensics with engaging and effective courses, resources, and community.

It has not been a smooth or straight path; I don’t believe anything worth fighting for will be a smooth road. For me, a lot of the challenges have been self-doubt, societal pressures, and wondering if I have made the right choices in life.

However, the hardest battles that I had to overcome and must overcome every day are the health issues that I am experiencing. Going through so much loss in such a short period of time has really shifted my perspective on life, and it has made me realize that I need to fight for what I value. Before these challenges, I had essentially hollowed myself out, accepting values that other people found important to them as my own. I learned the hard way that doing so is self-defeating and erodes on you as a person, especially if those values directly conflict with your own. It was a hard lesson, but I am so grateful I went through it; I am who I am today because of those lessons.

Like business, leadership, and courtroom testimony, a lot of it was trial by fire!

I had no idea how to write a book, though I've always been a reader and a writer. Throughout my life, I've documented important events and situations, either through journaling or saving messages. I never imagined that I would use the writing I've kept throughout my life to write a book. It just happened.

In a way, it made writing CSI to CEO pretty easy—I had the main content, I just had to fill in some gaps and add in a bit of creativity and imagery to make it interesting.

Eve, my editor, has been invaluable help on the technical aspects of the writing and publishing industry standards. I don't think this book would exist without her help.

A few of these made it into the book, so I'll leave readers to find out about those.

Some others that didn't make it in include a flooded house, where the perpetrators broke open the water hose on the washer before leaving the scene. To add onto that, when we responded, San Diego was experiencing a heavy rain and hail storm. We actually had to take a break during the initial briefing because it was hailing so hard!

That investigation was a very wet and cold night.

I've met a lot of animals at scenes. We've encountered many dogs, some cats, birds, and horses. There was even a teacup pig at one investigation. It was really cute.

The ones that always hit me the hardest, though, are the infants and toddlers. I just can't believe the evil.

I'm not sure yet. CSI to CEO took a lot of energy, so I'm going to continue promoting and marketing this one for a while.

But—I'm not completely shutting the door on another one sometime down the line!

I'm not really a fiction writer, so I don't think I'm going to try venturing into that realm.