Clay
grew up in a military family and like all military families they moved
around a lot. His father was career Navy and spent much of his time on
deployments leaving Clay's mother to take care of five children. From
his birthplace in Charleston, S.C. his family moved to Port Hueneme, Ca.
then to Patuxent River, Md., finally settling in Norfolk, Va. where his
father retired. A short time later, Clay's parents
separated
and eventually divorced. Clay grew up with three younger brothers and
one younger sister. His eldest sister was given up for adoption at birth.
In 1996 Clay began a three and a half year search for his older sister.
The first two years he tried the internet adoption sites, with no luck.
He then hired a private investigator and eighteen months later found his
sister. She had grown up in California near where she had been born. She
went to college in Washington State and met her future husband there.
They married, moved to Canada and both had become school teachers. Six
months after receiving a letter from Clay she was reunited with her lost
family.
Clay was an average student
in high school. He was too thin to join the football team, so he joined
the wrestling team instead and in his senior year went to the State Championships.
During his junior and senior years, Clay would attend half days at the
high school and half days at a Vocational Technical school, learning carpentry.
With graduation getting closer, he was not sure what he wanted to do with
his life. He didn't know how to get into acting and his mother couldn't
afford to send him to college. With the economy in a recession, the only
option left for him was to follow not only his father's footsteps, but
that of his hero John Wayne and join the military.
After his tour with the Marine
Corp, the first thing Clay did was to get himself appointed legal guardian
for his father who was being cared for by the State. His father suffered
from alcoholic dementia and Clay felt he could provide better care than
the State. His father lived with him for 14 years until his death from
esophageal cancer.
Clay believed that computers were the way of the future so he attended
a local accredited technical school and learned computer software programming.
Eight months later he graduated with honors, maintaining a 96.5 grade
point average. Jobs in that field were hard to come by without a college
degree, so Clay attended Old Dominion University using his Veterans entitlements
and majored in Management Information Systems. During his last year at
the University, Clay was offered a job working as a student apprentice
for the federal government at the Norfolk Naval Air Station.
One year later, Clay was offered a position with a naval unit located
in London England. During his
assignment
there, Clay traveled at every opportunity. He was "in good"
with a couple of locals who worked for the military's Morale, Welfare
and Recreation (MWR) office. Clay loved horses, so every time there was
a trip to a Welsh farm for weekend riding, he was the driver. Here he
learned the English saddle style of horseback riding. His second passion
was the weekend and week long trips for hiking (trekking) and camping
in the Welsh and Scottish mountain ranges. While in London, Clay traveled
to many countries such as Spain, France, Germany and Italy. He even skied
down the Zugspitze, the highest peak at the juncture of three countries,
Germany, Switzerland and Austria. To this day, he still remains in contact
with one of his Brit buds he met in London.
All good things must come to
an end. After four years, Clay returned to his home base. Shortly after
his return, Clay was offered a job with a new command. They needed a qualified
Computer Network Systems Administrator. During his years with this command,
Clay climbed the ladder of success until he reached the level of GS-13
and became their Network Systems Engineer, maintaining five networks.
During his tenure, he received many intangible awards in the way of salary
increases and promotions. On his last day, Clay was presented with the
second highest civilian award for Superior Civilian Service. With his
second career behind him, Clay packed his bags once more and followed
his heart to pursue a third career in acting.
