Dave joined the Royal Navy in 1980 and spent his naval career in the Communications General Branch. He became a warrant Officer in 2003, around the same time as coming out. He was a founding member of the LGBT Navy working group, which was formed to progress the changes that allowed LGBTQ+ people to serve.
After leaving the Navy Dave moved into the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (E&D) field and has held roles as the E&D Manager at Portsmouth City Council and, most recently, the University of Portsmouth. His roles have focused on developing inclusion policy, establishing staff networks, community engagement, ensuring organisations meet their Equality Act 2012 legal obligations, and embedding equality and diversity best practices. This work included a strong focus on LGBTQ+ inclusion.
Between 2008 and 2011, Dave worked at the LGBT charity STONEWALL as a client manager for organisations engaging with the charity and its workplace programme. He specifically looked after organisations from Local Authorities, Fire and Police Services, Higher Education, and the Armed Forces. While at Stonewall, he played a lead role in securing the Army and Security Services, joining the Diversity Champions Programme. Dave says highlights from his time at Stonewall included seeing, in the same year, the RN, RAF and Army appearing in the WEI top 100 together for the first time, assisting in the development of the Military LGBT staff forums, and being involved in supporting the three services at London Pride, which saw all three marching together in uniform for the first time in 2008.
Dave lives in Portsmouth with his husband, Manny, and their dog, Hilda.
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