Although I now live on the East Coast, I am originally from the Detroit Area.  While in high school, I had a real interest in studying film at college, but eventually decided to major in International Relations at Michigan State University instead.  I did take one film class while there, and the professor was the late Jim Cash, who wrote “Top Gun” and several other major films. I really enjoyed hearing the stories about his film work at the beginning of each class.  During my senior year, I also took “Introduction to Acting”.  When asked why I was taking the class, I said that I was considering becoming a Federal Agent and the training might be useful for undercover work.

During summer break from Michigan State in the 1980’s, I also had an opportunity to be a background actor in a local appliance store advertisement.  I had so much fun doing the commercial as one of the more than a hundred virtually unseen extras, I hoped that I would get to do this again sometime.

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, I was a Special Agent for the US Department of Treasury’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms in Detroit, Michigan, working primarily on illegal weapons sales and explosives investigations.  During this time, along with conducting investigations and doing all of the other things that agents do, I also worked undercover buying illegal weapons.

From early 1990’s to the mid 2010’s, I was at first a Special Agent and then a Senior Special Agent for the US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security, Office of Export Enforcement (OEE). While with OEE, I served first as a field agent in the Los Angeles Field Office, and later in the Washington DC Field Office. I also served two tours of duty at OEE Headquarters.   Because it was a very small agency, I had an opportunity to do an extremely wide range of very interesting things.  I also got to work with all of the major federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies along with several state and local agencies.

Overall, it was a very good career and life.  I conducted hundreds of investigations, traveled all over the world, and participated in numerous arrests warrants and search warrants. One thing that I really loved about the being a federal agent was that almost every day was truly different than the previous one.  I retired after almost 27 years as of service.

After retiring, I treated myself to a well-deserved one week off before starting once again in the as federal contractor in the intelligence and information technology fields.  Some of that work has been very interesting too.

In October 2018, I did my first background actor job since the 1980’s. I found that I still enjoyed it just as much as I did in more than thirty years earlier.  Since then, I have also been very fortunate to get additional work in lead and supporting actor roles. 

That same month, I also started Flashner Consulting LLC, which provides my services as an actor. The company also works with film, television and other productions offering law enforcement technical advisory services. More information about Flashner Consulting can be found at www.flashner.com