Trey Schesser

Trey Schesser was born Wilhelm Edi Schießer on 31 October 1982, in Dorfgul, Germany. His father was a German Army officer, and his mother, Becky, was an American nurse. His parents divorced when he was six years old and he subsequently moved to the USA with his mother. He then grew up in Chicago, Illinois, living with his mother and grandmother. From a very early age he loved music, and could be found peddling his Tyco car around the neighborhood while wearing out the Rolling Stones Hot Rocks tape in his Sony Walkman. He also enjoyed spending lots of time with his cousins, playing in the streets near their houses. He excelled in academics, earning straight A grades in his 5th year of elementary school, and even taught a portion of a college algebra class at a local community college. He played the violin for three years before starting guitar at the age of 13. From then on he always dreamed of becoming a rock star. Around the same time he also started skateboarding, which was a popular sub-culture in the US in the early to mid-1990's. In 1998, he moved to Los Angeles, CA, to live with his father and stepmother. He continued to get good grades in middle and high school while simultaneously being a skateboarding hooligan after class. He broke his left ankle and right arm on two separate occasions skateboarding but always returned to the sport. He could be found playing guitar and skateboarding daily with friends, often times coming into conflict with security guards and police. However, he was never arrested and only detained on occasion, if he and his friends could not escape quickly. He tried to start a few rock bands while in high school but was never successful due to financial and logistical constraints. He also played high school football, wrestled, and participated in Junior ROTC. Outside of school he shot competitively on a Junior NRA small-bore rifle team, earning wins at various competitions. He lettered varsity in football and wrestling. He would use the wrestling skills learned in high school later in life in the military. He attempted to get accepted to the US Military Academy at West Point but was turned-away due to a lack of politician recommendation. He had to get a medical waiver for a screw in his left ankle and was able to receive an ROTC scholarship, which allowed him to attend the Virginia Military Academy. He graduated in 2004 with a BS in civil engineering and was commissioned as a US Army officer. Even though his father was an officer in the German military, he felt he was following in his footsteps as an officer in the US military. He attended the US Army Engineer School, US Army Airborne School, and Special Forces selection during his military career. While he did not get selected for Special Forces, he gained many skills and mental and physically toughness. After selection, he took and passed the Army combatives course where he excelled. He would compete and place well in Army combative tournaments. During that time, he became a big UFC fan when Dana White took over the organization. While serving in Afghanistan in 2007, he met Kristine Kelleher, a surgery technician, and started dating. Back in the US ,they dated off and on until December of 2008, when they got engaged. He deployed once more to Afghanistan in 2009 and got married when he returned home the same year. Kristine was in the military and they could not be stationed together. They eventually moved in together in 2011 in Los Angeles, California, after both of them got out of the active duty military. He continued to work part-time in the California Army National Guard and took several contracting jobs as an instructor. During this time he attended many UFC events and furthered his interest in MMA. With the National Guard he deployed to Belize in the fall of 2012. While living in Belize with his unit, he trained the Belizean soldiers on land and in the water. Trey trained them specifically in leadership skills, mission planning, and combatives. It was in Belize where he auditioned for the role of Party Guy in Mike Lester's Poseidon Rex. His team mate, Chase got the role, but the secondary role of Party Guy #2 was created just for Trey. This was his first movie role. He gained experience acting by shooting multiple days and scenes over the period of four days. Many of the scenes had to be shot twice because many of the movie's stars were injured in a boating accident. The accident caused serious enough injuries that three of the main roles had to be re-cast and the scenes shot again. Trey returned home to LA in 2013. Due to the strains of constant deployments and being away from home, his relationship with his wife began to suffer. It was this year when he separated from Kristine and was divorced by the next year. He also made the decision to leave the military for good. Since he lived in LA and already had one acting job under his belt, he began auditioning for small roles. In his free time, he would continue his combatives hobby, previously begun in the military, by joining local MMA gyms. Trey began to specialize in MMA with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai. While most of the roles proved fruitless, he did land some extra positions and a few modeling shoots. Due to a lack of steady work as an actor, he returned to what he knows best, engineering. After many failed interviews, he eventually landed a job at Aecom as a civil engineer in 2014. Here he began work in civil engineering as a roadway engineer specializing in traffic flow. While work as an engineer kept him extremely busy, he used his free time to continue his passion for extreme sports by surfing the big waves of the Pacific Ocean. He also continued his passion for music by playing guitar and even began playing for a local band. Of course, he continued to train in MMA and even competed in a few local tournaments. In his free time he also loved to read. It was his love for reading that made him realize his passion for writing and the creative process. In 2016, he began work writing his first novel. Previously, he had written a few short stories, especially after taking creative writing class in college. His current novel is of such size and scope to rival the worlds created by that of Robert Jordan, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. All this writing took place over two years, at night, after work. Trey is fielding a few offers for publication. If successful, he will be looking to turn his debut success into rights for a screenplay and movie deal.