My Grandfather came from Bari, Italy as a young man. When he arrived in California's San Joaquin Valley, he only had his new wife and a dream of going into every aspect of the olive business in America. When he passed away, in his late eighties, he had four working olive plants located up and down the entire state and four grown sons who operated the thriving food processing plants. I was raised always knowing that I would one day own and operate at least one of those wildly successful processing plants. I was already being trained every weekend while my buddies were having fun, I was driving forklifts or crushing olives for their oil. I was quite happy with the direction of my life.

But as life will so often do, an unexpected change happened: World War Two ended
and Europe began to ship their less expensive olive oil to the USA. The result was devastating to the Maselli Olive Company. One by one the processing plants began to close down. What was I to do? At the time, I chose to become a life insurance salesman which ultimately got me into the Securities Business with Wells Fargo Bank. During that period I began to try my hand at writing screenplays and my success there got me into producing and directing in the movie business. What I found out was that I was a natural filmmaker and I've never slowed down since.

I've had three wives who've blessed me with four children and four grandchildren.

As a scriptwriter, my first feature-length tale was "SPIRITED WEST" – a historical screenplay adapted from Mark Twain’s “Roughing It.” A dozen screenplays later, my most current work, "BAKONGO CROSS", is attracting considerable attention from two Producers. It takes place in Italy, where a young, aspiring American archaeologist is pulled into the high-stakes world of precious art theft. There, he must contend for his survival with African Nationalists and the Vatican Intelligence.

As a writer-director, my first writing collaboration was, a short called A "LOVELY ADULT BEVERAGE", which won first prize at the Caligari Narrative Screenwriting Competition. In 2014 it was produced with myself as Director. The film premiered at San Francisco’s Castro Theater in early 2015. The narative tells an unexpected love story that begins when Carlos witnesses a blind date going sour. He immediately recognizes the opportunity for a foray into new territory.

Then I became drawn to the phenomenon of growing Climate Change risk to our world and Its impact on our planet's food supply. I picked the rice growers of Southeast Asia to tell the documentary's dramatic story. I flew to Thailand to connect with the documentary's Director (Chinese) and Cinemaphotographer (Dutch). We took a long overnight train to the top of Asia and for two weeks went down the Mekong River interviewing the struggling farmers. It was an amazing experience in so many ways. The film is called "Finding the Rice Mother."

Currently in production is my first feature narrative film: the anthology of films is entitled "CASHORTS." This collection of high-concept cinematic stories is about the fabled possibilities available to those who choose California as the place where they can reinvent themselves; and where that possibility is the strongest magnet of all. Netflix has been informed that "CAShorts" is to become a two-season series that will be brought to them next year for consideration.