Mike graduated from Gonzaga in 1995 with a BS in Mathematics and then worked for two years in Seattle. He left consulting for the Peace Corps where he taught high school math in a rural region of Northern Namibia. He also worked on AIDS prevention and solicited computer donations. Three months into his service Mike's close friend in the Peace Corps group was killed in a car accident. With a desire to help the most gifted yet poorest students in his school, as well as to honor his friend, Mike envisioned and created Deep Roots.

After Peace Corps, Mike moved to New York to pursue an MBA as a Bronfman Fellow at Columbia Business School. While in New York he researched fixed-property rights and interned with UNFIP. Mike then attended Johns Hopkins SAIS in Bologna and Washington, DC. During his time at SAIS he served as the interim country director for ICMC Zimbabwe, the implementing partner for the UNHCR (Press), and studied Indonesian (Bahasa) in Yogyakarta through a USINDO fellowship. Mike's graduate studies were generously supported by the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans.

Mike currently works as a project officer for the International Finance Corporation, a part of the World Bank Group.