Chris is a native of New Orleans, LA. He is a graduate of Howard University and holds an MBA from the University of Dallas. He has lived in New York, Texas Connecticut and New Jersey during his "first career" spanning thirty  years with a major manufacturing company. Now a resident of Pine Bluff, Arkansas he is the Executive Director of the Pine Bluff Area Community Foundation.  His wife, the author Laura Parker Castoro, is a Pine Bluff native. The couple have three adult children and eight grandchildren.