Szczesniak, Andrew W.

Kern graduated from Albany Law School in upstate New York in 2008 with a juris doctorate degree. He earned his B.A. in Political Science from The University of North Carolina at Wilmington in 2005 and, in 2003, earned an A.A. in Political Science from Cape Fear Community College. Prior to becoming an attorney, Kern worked as a professional musician, an audio engineer, and in the movie industry.

While in law school, Kern interned in the chambers of the Honorable John M. Tyson at the North Carolina Court of Appeals, worked at the Government Law Center in Albany, New York (New York's preeminent legal and policy research center and the oldest government law center in the United States according to their Web site) under the direction of Professor Patricia E. Salkin, Associate Dean and full-time Director of the Government Law Center, and also interned at Rice Law, PLLC.

Kern was born in a small upstate New York town known as Warrensburg in 1975 but considers himself a North Carolinian and loves living and working in North Carolina. He is the oldest of four siblings. His parents—who are still together after over 36 years—and his siblings have all lived in Wilmington since his father moved the family here from Rockford, Illinois, to continue his engineering work at the Brunswick Nuclear Power Plant in 1985.