ABOUT ME

In 2003 when I was 13, I started my first business, Massa productions.  Massa productions did stage lighting, sound and DJ’ing for local events. With our profits, when I turned 14 I bought a school bus to transport our equipment and in turn hired my first employee, a part time bus driver because I wasn’t old enough to drive myself.

Throughout middle and high school, I ran the productions business and brought on a couple of my friends. I saved up my profits and purchased an H1 hummer to be my promotional vehicle for the business. A teacher at my small, alternative high school told me I was single handedly destroying the planet with my hummer and suggested I try bio-diesel. I attempted to do so in chemistry class and caught my lab on fire. Now being curious about alternative fuels (and mostly saving money) I found a solution similar to biodiesel but without the methanol and hazardous manufacturing process. I began Massa Green Enterprises shortly after. In order to make time to run my business and because I could not stand being in class, I convinced my parents and teachers to let me take the GED test. I passed with a near perfect score.

At MGE we specialized in converting fleet diesels vehicles to burn recycled waste vegetable oil at a significant cost saving to the fleet owner. The highlight of that business was having the opportunity to convert then Governor, Arnold schwarzenegger’s personal fleet of H1 Hummers to burn vegetable oil. However, one of the most important lessons I learned while operating MGE was the importance of having a life balance, and that doing something that you love is more important than having a neat job and working all the time.

My next ventures have all been focused on “doing something I loved so that I don’t have to work a day of my life” as my grandfather used to say. After spending a few years waterskiing in North Carolina I found a way to combine my interest in the emergency services, particularly firefighting and innovative technologies and began HiViz LED Lighting in 2011.

HiViz LED Lighting is now one of four manufacturers supplying scene lighting to US fire apparatus manufacturers. Our products are found in cities all across the US from Prince George County Maryland to LA County CA to international locations including Austria, Turkey and Singapore.

2008- CNN’s “Young person who rocks”

2012- Summerville Firefighter of the year

2013- Summerville Chiefs award

2015- Lillington Firefighter of the year

2017- FAMA Technical Committee Chairmans Award