Growing up in Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota, a thriving metropolis of 513 people, Don enjoyed watching all sorts of movies and worked at a the six-theater Movies at Maplewood Minnesota in high school. Years later, one of the sales consultants he worked with at his day job was in town from the Los Angeles, California office. At dinner one night, she asked him, out of the blue, "Have you ever thought about acting?" Don's answer was "No."

With this on his mind, Don started taking classes. First from the Lex-Ham Community Theater, via the Community Education arm of the St. Paul Minnesota Public Schools, taught by John Townsend, as well as classes at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, many taught by working Guthrie actors such as Nathaniel Fuller and Charles Fraser. One of the classes Don took at the Guthrie was "Acting for the Camera and Microphone", taught by Don Cosgrove. After that class, Cosgrove told Don to go out and start auditioning, which he did. The training must have done its job as Don started getting cast in one short film after another and things have continued on from there.

All of what you see here, and on the resume, is a result of a simple question over dinner one night...