About Matthew:

Matthew is the oldest son of two USPS letter carriers and was raised on a horse farm in Romance, Arkansas. The farm once held as many as 43 horses, and there was always work to be done. By the time he was two, Matthew was handing fence clips to his father while they built fence. As he got older, life on the farm meant picking rocks out of the pasture, building fence, bucking hay in the summer, and making sure the horses were taken care of.

After that, much of Matthew’s childhood revolved around the horses and the trails. His parents shifted their focus away from showing and toward trail riding, founding the Arkansas Trail Riding Chapter of the Missouri Foxtrotting Horse Breed Association. Through that work, Matthew spent countless hours riding, maintaining horses, and helping reopen long-closed trails in the Buffalo National Forest, working with local historians and the National Forest Service. Those rides were about more than recreation; they were stewardship, history, and responsibility. It is that same attitude of being involved that drew Matthew to scouting, where he achieved the rank of Eagle Scout.

Because both of his parents were federal workers, volunteering took the form of service rather than politics. Matthew grew up volunteering with organizations like March of Dimes, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Toys for Tots, and Camp Aldersgate in Little Rock, where he spent summers working with children facing serious medical challenges.

Service was not treated as exceptional or optional—it was simply part of being useful.

Music became a constant through Matthew’s high school years and beyond. He began playing trombone in sixth grade and continued through college, eventually spending five years in the Razorback Marching Band at the University of Arkansas. College was a turning point for Matthew as it was where he found his people, took on leadership roles through the band service fraternity Kappa Kappa Psi, and learned how much he valued being part of something larger than himself. He balanced academics, leadership, and work, holding jobs throughout college, including engineering internships that ultimately clarified what he did not want to do long-term.

Financial insecurity defined much of his early adulthood. Matthew worked multiple jobs, relied on work-study, and at times depended on volunteer work at a sorority house simply to eat and keep his dog fed. During this period, he also came out—a process that cost him relationships he thought were permanent and forced him to rebuild his support system from the ground up. What remained were the people who mattered, and the clarity that came with finally being honest with himself.

That clarity coincided with a professional shift. After leaving engineering, Matthew moved into hospitality, eventually rising quickly into management at a private club serving national political leaders, CEOs, and public figures. The work exposed him to power, money, and influence up close—and just as clearly, to the toxicity that can accompany them. When a friend suggested a temporary move to Reno, Nevada, Matthew took the leap. What was supposed to be four months became a permanent turning point.

In Reno, Matthew entered political organizing full-time. Starting with no lists, no infrastructure, and no safety net, he built teams, trained volunteers, and organized campaigns around healthcare, climate, gun violence prevention, and immigrant rights during the first Trump administration. After that, he served as an Attaché in the Nevada Assembly, where he discovered both an aptitude for reading legislation and a deep interest in how policy is actually made. That work was interrupted when he joined a presidential campaign and then returned home to care for his mother through the end of her life. He ultimately returned to Nevada to serve again in the legislature, carrying forward both his organizing experience and legislative grounding.

Following the 2021 legislative session, Matthew was hired as the northern Nevada political coordinator by the Nevada State Democratic Party, and then promoted to Executive Director in early 2022. While there, Matthew was able to build coalitions with Executive Directors across the nation, working to improve transparency in campaign finance, to highlight Nevada as a crucial electoral state, and secure resources and funding for programs specific to rural areas. Following his tenure at the State Party, Matthew served as State Director and eventually National Field Director of Blue Wave America, an organization committed to engaging with rural voters on important issues affecting their communities.