Allow me to kick the ball down the field.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I think it'd be useful if each of you guys posted a short bio, a summary of your training and coaching history, the reason for your involvement with this prestigious organization, and what kind of whiskey you like.

[Tom Campitelli]

My name is Tom Campitelli and I currently live in Oakland, CA. I have a B.S. in Geosciences that I earned from Penn State in the late 20th Century. I was a member of the Penn State Karate Club and an instructor there, as well. I began the Starting Strength program in earnest in early 2008 after attending one of Rip's barbell seminars. By the time I made it to Wichita Falls in early 2010 for Rip's second Starting Strength Seminar, I put on 50 pounds and was a good deal stronger. I also began coaching people in my gym during that time. In August 2010, Rip asked me to start holding Starting Strength Camps out here in sunny CA. I came on board as one of the seminar staff in late 2010 and here I have been since. Rip selected me to take some of the pictures in the 3rd Edition of Starting Strength and last year I became the Secretary of the Starting Strength Coaches Association. I compete in powerlifting, as do several of my trainees, although, honestly, my trainees are a hell of a lot better than I am in that regard. I currently lift and coach out of CrossFit Oakland. Rip's program and methods worked well for me and for the people with whom I work. Both Rip and Stef have been nothing but excellent to me since I became involved in their organization and I look forward to being a part of this Q&A.

As for whiskey, I am something of a neophyte. While I will probably get ribbed for this, Glenlivet 12 Year is okay. I mean, someone thought highly enough of it to stick it in a barrel for 12 years and stare at it, so it's got that going for it. Glenmorangie 10 is probably a safer bet, however.

In my spare time, I serve as Michael Wolf's fashion consultant.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Andy Baker, owner of Kingwood Strength & Conditioning. We are a small private personal training facility about 30 miles north of Houston. Since 2007 we have been using the basic barbell exercises to train athletes and members of the general public for strength, health, and performance improvement. At KSC we have had notable success with athletes in a number of sports including baseball, football, rowing, and MMA. However, our biggest success has come working with the local high school swimmers. I am proud to say that our swimmers have won multiple state and national titles and we have KSC alumni on scholarship at universities such as Arizona State, TCU, Kansas, and Auburn. This years graduates will be heading to Maryland and the University of Houston.

In addition to training athletes we have clients well into their 70s looking to use barbell exercise to counteract the affects of aging and improve their daily lives.

Much to the dismay of Matt Reynolds, Kingwood Strength & Conditioning was honored to be the nation's first gym, outside of WFAC, to earn the designation as a Starting Strength Gym (I handed my paperwork to Rip about 30 seconds before Reynolds handed his in).

Prior to opening KSC I served 4 years in the US Marine Corps as a Heavy Machine Gunner (0331). My 4 year enlistment included two tours of duty as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

My own competitive history in the strength sports is nothing to write home about. Between 2005 and 2010 I was somewhat actively competitive with N.A.S.A. Powerlifting. The highlight of my competitive career came with a win of the 198 lb unequipped weight class at the N.A.S.A. Grand Nationals in July of 2010. With the win I set an NASA American Record with a 529 squat, and a Texas State Record with a 380 bench. I think each record stood for about 6 weeks. I plan on re-entering the sport in the next year or so.

Being born and raised in Texas, I spend at least a few weeks out of the year hunting dove & deer, and fishing the gulf coast. As far as whiskey goes......I'm a beer drinker. Sorry. And I prefer Copenhagen to Skoal.

In December I will have been married for 10 years to my wife Laura, and I have a daughter Kaylee (4), and a son Jackson (3).

[Steve Hill]

I'm Steve Hill. I have a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Southern Polytechnic State University, and work as an Operations Support Engineer (as well as being Principal MD90 Engineer) for a local major air line. I'm a former track cyclist, having won two Elite national championships (2006 & 2007), and several World Masters championships, as well as holding (or having held) several world records in Masters track cycling. I came to Starting Strength in 2007 out of necessity, as I was both recovering from a back injury and trying to defend my first national championship, and my former gym program was far too time consuming. I retired from competitive cycling in the fall of 2009, but have continued to lift.

During this time I also coached other cyclists. Since I worked mainly with track cyclists, this also meant teaching people how to lift. I've been coaching since 2005, and during that time required all of my athletes to lift. I still hold a yearly lifting camp for them to pass on new things that I've learned. In 2010, I attended the Atlanta Starting Strength Seminar, and got my coaching certificate, and from there it's been downhill ever since. Kidding. Shortly after the seminar, I started working with local CrossFit affiliates (AK CrossFit is a great place to lift, I recommend you drop in and see Darren, Heidi and Ali if you're in town), training their coaching staff on proper execution of the 5 main lifts. I was added to staff in 2010 (a little story about this later), and I've been doing 6-10 seminars a year ever since. I've also been holding camps here in ATL since October of 2011.

Whiskey? Well, I'm still being educated, so my tastes are that of a neophyte. I like Rittenhouse, and Buffalo Trace was pretty tasty as well. I've always been more of a beer guy, though.

Now for the story:

I got added to staff in the summer of 2010 (I think it was May). Rip and I had written the pulling mechanics article just before the SS Seminar, so I called him up and told him I was going to come by and help stef with set-up, and that they were going to come to the house for dinner the night before. So I call him up the Tuesday before the seminar to confirm flights / hotels / pick-up for dinner, and immediately after he answers the phone and recognizes me, he just says "You're coaching a platform this weekend." No warning, nothing - just BOOM, forget hanging out all weekend - time to go to work. That's how Rip operates.

A lot of people ask me about what Rip is like to work with. I choose my words carefully in that sentence, because if you're on the team, you don't work FOR Rip and stef, you work WITH them. To echo Tom's comments above, they are two of the most genuine, honest, straightforward, and generous people I've ever met. It's been an incredible honor, and I'm proud to work with and alongside them, as well as the rest of the INCREDIBLE staff, teaching people to lift better.

Also, as a final note, as Wolf can attest, I invented the SS conjugation of the word SQUEEZE.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Hi all, Jordan here (from the nutrition forum). Education-wise, I’ve earned a B.S. in Biology with a minor in Human Performance/Assessment, a Master’s in Anatomy and Physiology, and am working on completing my MD degree currently. Additionally, I currently hold the following professional distinctions: Starting Strength Coach, NSCA-CSCS, ACSM-HFS, USAW Level 1 Coach, and some others that I’ve let expire or don’t care to list. To complete my educational history, I’ve done some primary research in protein metabolism and knee mechanics, none of which has been published at this time.

Professionally, I’ve done everything from being a trainer in a commercial gym to hosting accredited seminars for other trainers, coaches, and health professionals. I’ve also been doing online training and nutritional consulting for a few years now. I’ve worked with many different populations, from young athletes to previously sedentary soccer moms and the elderly. I also dabble in some competitive sports, namely motocross (temporarily retired) and powerlifting. As a 181 competitor my competition bests are 452/325/551. Don't worry everyone, I'm moving up currently.

I ended up going to a Starting Strength Seminar down at WFAC in June and had an awesome experience. I had read and studied all of the Starting Strength and related texts in addition to the usual "elite" texts by Issurin, Verkoshansky, Siff, etc. As of now, I'm working on getting the Starting Strength Seminar accredited, so that other fine folks in this industry have an impetus to go through the seminar.

As for whiskey, I'm a rookie. I like my Johnny Walker (black and blue labels when I'm feeling really fancy) and my scotch (Glen Livet). I consider this a work in progress.

Working with Rip, Stef, and the rest of the SS staff is unlike any other experience I've ever had in this field or industry. Everything that Tom and Steve said are dead on. These are the people who you want on your side and I'm proud to be associated with them.

[Michael Wolf]

Michael Wolf, frustratingly operating out of Manhattan, NYC. I got my first job in the fitness industry in 2003 as a weight room supervisor, and have been working full time as a trainer since 2005. I spent six years, as a trainer and a PT Dept Manager, at an upscale commercial gym chain here in NYC, and have been training independently, running my own business for the last couple years. I was also an adjunct instructor of physical education at a local university for several years, till they folded their P.E. requirement for budget cuts, and still serve as the (part time) Strength & Conditioning Coach at that same university.

I was, ironically, introduced to Starting Strength at the very beginning of 2008 by the infamous Dana, who was both a huge fan of Rip and an employee of mine at the time. I had not previously been exposed to proper barbell training, despite my mom working for Bob Gajda - mentioned in Starr's 3'd George Ernie Picket article - in the early 80's, he wasn't really focusing on barbell training anymore by that point. Or at least, he didn't pass any of it down to her. Prior to SS, my influences had shifted from the muscle magazines to the more mainstream "fitness industry" experts/gurus - think: the people or type of people who make up the Perform Better circuit. Upon reading SS, I immediately recognized the level of detail and analysis as significantly superior to anything I had read previously. Over the next few months, I changed the way I trained both myself and my clients. I've been focused on this type of training ever since. This made it a no-brainer to attend the SS Seminar the first chance I got, when it first came to NYC as the full SS Seminar, in April, 2011.

However, I had a somewhat ignominious beginning with Starting Strength. For reasons still entirely mysterious and unclear, something went out in my back during the warmup sets for the deadlift on Saturday, and I could not complete the seminar, and thus not earn the SSC. Despite the black hole of the Interwebz swallowing some of my and Stef's follow-up emails after that, we were able to get back in touch, and I came back to attend the April, 2012 seminar. I've been on staff now since June, 2012. I can only echo what others have written here before me, that Rip and Stef have been nothing but incredibly generous, straight-forward, helpful, and easy to work with.

Like many of the staff coaches, I too compete in raw powerlifting, though "compete" may be too generous a term. My best competition lifts thus far have been a 500 squat, 365 bench press, and 580 deadlift. The plan is to make a raw elite total in the next 18 months, and "compete" will be a more appropriate term at that point.

Prior to joining the staff, I was primarily a beer guy, Belgian Ales being my favorite. But over the past year, I've become more aware of the subtle pleasures that a good Whiskey brings to the table. At home right now I have a mostly finished bottle of Buffalo Trace, which is good, and mostly full bottle of Four Roses Small Batch, which is crap. The best whiskey I've tasted is the William Larue Weller at Rip's place, and my next purchase when the Buffalo Trace runs out (or when I decide to chuck the Four Roses) will be a Maker's 46. "Why not just buy it now?" you ask. Have you ever seen a Manhattan apartment?

[Mark Rippetoe]

My apologies to everyone for the whiskey education of my staff. We are studying this at every seminar.

[Steve Hill]

My apologies to everyone for the whiskey education of my staff. We are studying this at every seminar.

Hey, you told me Rittenhouse and Buffalo Trace were both perfectly fine whiskeys - and I did say I'm a rookie.

[Les Hahn]

Hey, you told me Rittenhouse and Buffalo Trace were both perfectly fine whiskeys - and I did say I'm a rookie.

He was just testing you...

[Mac Ward]

Colonel E. H. Taylor, any variety will do though I am a fan of Small Batch.