Brother David was born May 28, 1952, the third of five children, and grew up in the small town of Belle Vernon, in southwestern Pennsylvania. He was baptized John Michael.

He graduated from high school in 1970, and went to college at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pa., where he majored in philosophy with a minor in classical languages (Latin and Greek), graduating in 1974. Brother David did some graduate work at Ohio State University in classical languages but did not finish a master's degree.

He had always been interested in monastic life. By 1976, Brother David decided that he wanted to investigate it more seriously and talked with a Trappist friend who suggested that he check out New Skete. At that point, Brother David needed to start thinking about getting a new car so his question became, "Get a new car and put monastic life on hold until I pay it off or go to the monastery and see what would happen there?" His academic adviser suggested that he go to the monastery and try that, reminding him that he could always come back within five years to finish his degree. (An interesting aside here from Brother David: "My adviser arranged reading hours so that I could work in early monastic literature while I came to some discernment. I'm ever grateful to him.")

Brother David came to New Skete at the end of November, 1977, was clothed as a novice assistant at the end of February 1978, and made final profession on Aug. 6, 1980. His duties have changed several times over the course of the years but he has always worked in New Skete Farms, both in production and more recently in management. He has worked in smoking and curing meats, smoking cheese, making cheese spreads, handling the shop and managing the mail order business. Brother Davis also managed the New Skete mailing list over the years. The brother has learned and enjoys database and spreadsheet work - he still prefer DOS to Windows!

With the dogs, he has handled several of the brood dams over the years and has had some favorites. He loves whelping puppies. On occasion he also works in the kennels as a laborer, feeding, grooming and cleaning up. Brother David likes working with the dogs.

Brother David has many special activities in which he delights. In particular, he enjoys morning and evening prayers, directing the choir and conducting its practice, preaching, working in various languages and the monastery's Greek class that is studying the Gospels in Greek, sacred reading and study, spiritual direction, meditation, sci-fi and horror novels, and he has a small collection of toys.