David helped found a non-profit that leases empty rectories and convents to create communities of young adult Catholic professionals in 2019 while living in San Diego, where he experienced the challenges of exorbitant housing costs, the desire for Catholic community, and the lack of creative options for empty convents. He then entered the seminary with the Congregation of Holy Cross in 2020 and saw firsthand how property was viewed more as a problem for over-stretched, under-resourced pastors, rather than an opportunity.

After discerning out of seminary, David was tapped to be the inaugural director of Notre Dame’s Church Properties Initiative in 2021. Tasked with researching the complex topic of “church property” and devising ways in which leading minds could collaborate on the issue, David dialogued with Church leaders from the Vatican down to individual parishes about how property was understood and used. In 2024, he left the “think tank” role at Notre Dame to pursue more of a “do-tank” opportunity, working directly with Catholic landowners to turn property into opportunities.

David is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and served as an officer in the US Navy as a helicopter pilot flying the MH-60S