Mario has served in the Coast Guard for five years, two of them as a Public Affairs Specialist. As a Public Affairs Specialist for the Coast Guard, he has written press releases, prepared speakers to go before a camera for a news broadcast, conducted an on camera interview myself, taken video and images and edited both. Mario has responded to oil spills, stood up a Joint Information Center for a Unified Command response, and served in other JICs. He has interacted with industry, as well as local, state, and federal government agencies to train for possible responses of national and local interest. Mario has had images in the Coast Guard magazine and on newspapers and video played on the news, both local and national. He is also currently attending the University of Phoenix working on a degree in Communications.