Hi everybody! I’m Greg. I’ll be 25 in April. In 2007, I graduated from McDaniel College with magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors. I took a corporate job upon graduating college, and realized that it wasn’t for me after being there for a year and a half. As you’ll read here and throughout this webpage, I have accomplished a lot in my life.

All I want out of that life, and my career, is to know that I have made a difference. My life has taught me how much potential and ability I truly have. Nothing would mean more to me than sharing these lessons I have learned and inspiring everyone to reach for their utmost potential. Anything is possible once it’s been achieved. I’ve done some impossible things in my life and all of you deserve to know how is truly possible.

I have been called many things across my life, but the person I am now—determined, marathoner, motivator, martial artist—never would have existed without the person I was—fat, timid, disabled. I lost weight, and I gained confidence, but one attribute remained unchanged—my disability.

Go back and look at my pictures. What you’ll see is: a pitcher, a runner, a current blue belt in taekwondo and an all-around healthy man. What you won’t see is: the 3-year-old who couldn’t walk, the 5-year-old who limped, the 8 year old who finished dead last in gym class and even the 15 year old who was still discriminated against. No one can tell by looking at me, but when I was 3 I survived a ruptured brain aneurysm and stroke. I was stricken by a cerebral hemorrhage in 1988, but in 2008 I finished first in my division at the Boston Marathon.

My body is physically and neurologically damaged due to permanent nerve damage that streams across the right side of my body. My extremities are numb. My motor control and dexterity are greatly impaired, and I don’t have peripheral vision in my right eye. However, this is the only way I have known my body to be because I don’t remember before I was 3 years old. I don’t remember the aneurysm!

What happened to me was devastating, but I have the choice of viewing my disability as a plague or viewing today as the healthiest and strongest I have ever known my body to be. I choose the latter. Not everyone has that luxury, but each of us deserves to know that no disability limits our ability. If you don’t believe me, watch me run a marathon.

I share my life story in hopes of inspiring everyone to reach for their dreams, and hopefully showing them a few new ways to do so. I relate to people without disabilities as easy as I do those with disabilities. What I have learned is how to live life to the fullest. As much as that includes living with and overcoming my disability, extracting life’s full potential goes far beyond any disability. It’s a goal each of us can strive towards despite whatever limitations we may have individually. I’ve been figuring out how to get myself there, and I can think of nothing greater than to share the knowledge I have gained across my life with everyone I can possibly reach. Whether you are sitting inside a cubicle or lying in a hospital bed doesn’t matter. Each of us dreams and each of us deserves to know that we can reach those dreams one step at a time.

As you search through this webpage you will find clips from a few of my 2009 speeches and photo albums. You will also find my current projects, which include my defending run at the 2010 Boston Marathon and my goal in publishing my first book, entitled An Uncharted Life. I have also been maintaining a blog regularly across this year where I share my story in more depth and discuss my current training regimens as I train to defend my title at Boston. Check it out!

I’m a miracle—it’s weird to say, but it’s true. Where I have gotten myself is unprecedented. Now, all I want to do with my life is make a difference, to become that precedent for everyone who doubts his or her potential ability and to leave this world a better place. Whether you live with a disability or are fully functional, we all deserve to know that we can aspire towards any dream we have. That’s who I am and that is what I am hoping to accomplish with Determination.