Jef began his piercing career in 1997 as an apprentice piercer in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1999 he attended the Fakir Intensives, a piercer training seminar in San Francisco, California.  Since then, piercing has been Jef’s full-time career.  

Over the past two decades, Jef has attended countless piercing classes and seminars. These include the Fakir Intensives Advanced Piercing class, classes, workshops and roundtables at the Association of Professional Piercers (APP) conferences, and still more at the Latin American Body Piercing Association (LBP).  Jef founded the New England Piercers Group and hosted classes and roundtables for that organization.

Jef is a piercing educator, getting his start teaching classes for the Fakir Intensives. He was later invited to teach for the Association of Professional Piercers and the Latin American Body Piercing Association (LBP).  He has developed his own brand of piercer training called "Advanced Fundamentals," and also helped develop the Fakir Intensives Comprehensive class, a 5-day seminar aimed at providing training for piercers with substantial experience.

Jef’s Blog, “Confessions of a Piercing Nerd”, has been aimed at providing body piercing education, theory, and discussion free of charge for nearly a decade.  He has also written articles for the Association of Professional Piercer’s journal, The Point.  His writing has been featured in The Journal of Emergency Nursing and Pain Magazine.  He has been interviewed and featured in the Providence Journal, Inked Magazine, and Parade Magazine.

In 2014 Jef was elected to the Association of Professional Piercer’s Board of Directors. In 2015 Jef received the APP President’s Award from Brian Skellie. Jef served as Membership Liaison until 2017, helping to expand membership and develop the APP’s Suggested Apprenticeship Guidelines and Curriculum.  In 2016, Jef was elected  President of the Association of Professional Piercers.

Most recently, piercer and author Elayne Angel asked Jef to be a contributing author on the new edition of The Piercing Bible, the definitive guide to safe piercing. “The Piercing Bible, Revised and Expanded, contains a complete overhaul of the original text. It includes essential medical and technical updates, as well as refreshed illustrations, diagrams, and jewelry photography, to reflect today's standards and best practices for safe, professional piercing. It is new, improved, and entirely modernized”.