Matt grew up in the county outskirts in South Alabama at Rt. 1, Lot 1 on a two-track sand road, starting life in a 600 sq ft abandoned farmhouse that his dad worked board-by-board to rebuild.
Since he was a child, he’s loved escaping into the unknown of adventure, challenge, and possibility. His life has not been without significant hardship, but he is uncommonly resilient. Matt believes in possibility, in overcoming, and is a master in the art and science of never giving up.
After being kicked out of public school at 12 as a delinquent, Matt graduated high school and received undergraduate and master’s degrees in Theology and Missions with honors. He is a prolific reader, a powerful generalist, and an independent thinker.
At 25, he moved to Togo, West Africa, and began fabricating drilling equipment from local resources to drill wells and install water pumps by launching local businesses. The fact that 100 feet of soil and rock separated people from life and death was, in Matt’s heart, an obstacle worth overcoming. Faced with the deathly consequences of the water crisis there, he partnered with local individuals to build equipment, drill wells, and install pumps to eradicate the water crisis at a village-to-village level--scaling to 100 wells and five local businesses in its 2nd year.
In 2011, Matt was hospitalized and confined to a bed and wheelchair due to constant battering of waterborne illness and malaria from living in villages. He overcame the extreme medical challenges that resulted from the subsequent autoimmune meltdown and 6 months of being combined to a bed and wheelchair. He lost 117lbs, eventually becoming an ultramarathoner and Ironman 140.6 finisher, completing the latter two months after being hit by a 50mph SUV while cycling.
By age 35, he was named CEO at Water4, an organization he’s been a part of for the last thirteen years, starting, coaching, and scaling businesses in 15 countries, completing 15,000 water projects impacting 2.5 million people. As CEO Matt designed and led Water4 through a massive transition in operational strategy and scale, creating their NUMA piped water model. He set a new long-term vision, led an organizational rebranding, navigated multinational acquisitions, and saw a doubling of the organization’s revenue in his first four years of leadership. Matt is both a visionary and an operational leader, driven for big impact but competent to build the systems and structures necessary for success. Matt is passionate about championing people who are overlooked and helping maximize unrealized potential.
Focused on his faith, family, health, community, and personal growth, Matt lives in many tensions that he believes can propel one towards personal freedom and joy when kept in balance with intention. He’s passionate about leading others toward God and their own freedom, releasing the potential within us all.
