Brent was born in Traveres City, Michigan, but lived most of his life right here in Washington State. He graduated high school in 1978 in Joyce, Washington and went on to college at Peninsula College, obtaining an Associate Degree in Fisheries Technology in 1981.

His 40- year career working for the State of Washington began with the Department of Fish & Wildlife, working as a Fisheries Technician and a Fish Hatchery Specialist. An industrial injury prompted a career change in 1990. He continued working with the Department of Fish & Wildlife, this time as a Safety Officer and managed the agency’s Workers’ Compensation claims and Retrospective Rating Program. His interest in helping injured workers prompted another change of employment and he started working with the Department of Labor & Industries in 1996. He worked as a Workers’ Compensation Adjudicator, a Claims Consultant, and for the last 10 years as a Pension Adjudicator. While working with the State, Brent helped with the standardization of the pension process and contributed to the Workers’ Compensation Systems Modernization work. Upon retirement from the State, Brent began working with Williams, Wyckoff & Ostrander in 2022 and brings with him over 30 years of experience working with Industrial Insurance.

Brent brings his own personal knowledge as being an injured worker himself. Since the loss of his dream career due to his on-the-job-injury, he has always wanted to help injured workers. It was a natural step for him to enter into the workers’ compensation world to begin this process in which he has helped not only the processes within L&I, but has helped injured workers themselves.