Dave was born and raised in New York City and has a Master’s Degree in Social Work. His path to being a therapist was not a straightforward one. Living in New York he installed air conditioners, answered questions at the information desk at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, did pretty much nothing during an investment banking internship, problem-solved at a publishing company and showed people ridiculously overpriced apartments as a real estate agent. Finally realizing NYC was not for him, he went to Alaska and canned fish in a salmon canning factory.  Finding out that salmon was not his passion, he taught English in Tokyo, took developmentally disabled adults to parks and malls in Palo Alto, CA, pounded nails and painted houses in Boston, talked to callers about life and death on the Suicide Hotline in San Francisco and finally decided to become a mechanical engineer. (Ummm…what…?)

Having been accepted into a Mechanical Engineering program, he visited an engineer friend’s office to get a feeling for the job.  That when things changed.  Being struck by the lack of person-to-person connection in the office and a compulsive desire to throw paper airplanes at everyone in the office, he realized that he would be bored out of his mind working behind a computer. It was a moment when he saw that what he really loved most was being with people… in a profound way.

Since that moment, Dave’s path has been clear.  He got a job back in NYC working with inner city youth- helping them get and keep employment. He was then accepted into Graduate school for Social Work and by the winter of 2002, had graduated, moved to Edmonton (that’s a whole other story) and was hired by AADAC as a drug & alcohol counsellor.  After working at AADAC for 5 years, he decided to expand his work experience and began working as a therapist with Shepellfgi, a company that provides counselling to employees of large companies in Canada.

Working at Shepellfgi, he dealt with professionals, tradesmen, youth and just about anybody on a wide variety of topics including, anxiety, panic attacks, addiction, depression, workplace stress, abuse, eating disorders, communication, marriage/relationship, men’s issues and grief & loss to name a few.

Dave now sees clients privately and is enjoying it tremendously. And he tries not to take himself too seriously.

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