 In junior high he served as treasurer of the student council and later, while attending Woodlawn High School, became president of the local church youth group.After his graduation from Woodlawn High in 1985, he began working for a pest control company.He attended Catonsville Community College, studying to be an interpreter for the hearing impaired, and was later a photo editor for the college newspaper; it was in this position, according to Shrader, that he was nearly expelled from the school for photographs he had taken of Joan Jett.