Meet Nick

Nick grew up in a working-class family that taught him the value of service, not status. His mom is a nurse, his dad a carpenter, and from an early age he learned that hard work and compassion go hand in hand. He bagged groceries at the local Dierberg’s to fund service trips with his local church, translating for American doctors treating families in Central America — experiences that shaped his belief that the measure of a community is how it treats people in need.

That same belief led Nick to a career in public health. A Columbia University–trained population health scientist, his research has spanned everything from developing low-cost robotic tools to help stroke survivors regain mobility, to co-authoring neurosurgical research on restoring movement after spinal cord injuries, to studying how chemical exposures affect children’s brains. Today, his work and advocacy focus on tackling the crushing burden of medical debt, the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in America, a crisis he views as unconscionable and entirely fixable.

Nick has worked across sectors, from the U.S. Embassy in Honduras, where he focused on foreign policy and national security, to Wall Street, where he joined Goldman Sachs after earning his M.S. in Global Affairs from New York University. He took the job hoping to pay off student loans, but the Great Recession hit first, an experience that deepened his understanding of how fragile our economy can be and how urgently working families need leaders who remember what it’s like to struggle. Through it all, he’s seen how systems can either serve people or leave them behind. That insight, drawn from both research and lived experience, is what drives his approach to public service.

Now he’s running for Congress to change that.

His campaign began with The Clean Slate Project, an initiative to erase nearly $18 million in medical debt for families across Missouri’s 2nd District. But it’s about more than debt; it’s about dignity. Nick believes every family deserves the freedom to live, work, and raise kids without the fear that one accident or illness will bankrupt them — and that’s just the beginning of what his campaign hopes to achieve.

Nick lives in St. Louis County with his brilliant wife of 14 years, Katy, and their five-year-old daughter, Annie, with a baby boy on the way. He’s the oldest of three siblings: one sister is a hospice social worker serving families in St. Charles, Franklin, and Warren Counties, and the other served in the U.S. Navy for nine years, including a deployment to Iraq.

When he’s not on the campaign trail, you’ll find Nick running local half-marathons and training for his first marathon, helping coach his daughter’s kindergarten soccer team, or chasing Annie around the playground. He’s also an avid St. Louis CITY SC fan, a season-ticket holder who rarely misses a match, especially when he’s cheering alongside his mom, his longtime soccer buddy.