Larry was born in Talladega, Alabama. At the age of 10 moved to Jacksonville Florida and shortly after his senior year he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in March of 1968. After his 4-year enlistment and 13-month tour in Vietnam, he returned to attend Florida Junior College in Jacksonville working at King Edward’s Cigar factory, a cabinet and fixture fabrication shop, cross-match lab at a blood bank and finally Carpentry. Larry attained his Sub-Contractor’s License and started running his own crews framing stilt houses in the Hernando Florida area.
During his years in construction, Larry became excited about scuba diving, rolling into cave diving, exploring some of the deepest, water-filled caves in the continental United States. Larry became an instructor teaching Cave and mixed-gas diving, training divers to safely dive these beautiful overhead environments. Larry sat on the Board of Directors of an international training agency for cave diving as the training director for 15 years.
In 2013, Larry was a photographer with a motorcycle club that was producing a club calendar and that’s when Larry met Tina, becoming the best of friends. Tina made the calendar. In November 2017, Sweetwater was a bit short-handed, and Tina invited Larry to help at the roastery on a part time basis. Larry got hooked and started roasting full time for Sweetwater in February 2018.