Appearance: Tall, standing at 6'4", (on good days when his posture isn't too slumped from nights of staying awake for far too long studying something in the labs) with long limbs that would be gawky looking if Zach didn't seem so self-assured with his height. Possessing a fine head of kind of curly, always messy looking, brown hair, which has a vague hint of Einstein like puffiness Zach always look like he's just gotten out of bed (and a lot of the time, it's not that far from the truth).
Personality: Zach's one of those people who you always envy because they seem to always be in a constant state of calm, serenity. That is, you envy him, until you realize that the reason he's so calm is because he's halfway asleep. Still, when he's fully awake (which is usually during the nights) he's a lovely guy to be around completely pleasant and energetic and quite willing to avoid conflict and arguments. Granted, he's no pushover - he's a military man, which means he'll fight for what he believes in until he can't fight anymore, but in the mean time he doesn't see the harm in a little compromise every now and then.
Bio: Zach's constant sleepiness is a side effect of his insomniac tendency to stay up far too late and then try to get up only a few hours later and make it throughout the day without coffee. It's a habit he's had all his life, and because of it he did very poorly at school where the early starting times conflicted with his not being able to keep his eyes open long enough to learn anything. So, with no real college prospective after high school he joined the Air Force.
The Air Force was probably one of the better choices Zach ever made, because not only did they train some discipline into him sleep wise (key word being some) they also informed him about the wonders of night school. So, while going through boot camp and all the other fun military training processes Zach attended night school where he learned he was in fact not stupid after all. In fact he was surprisingly intelligent for someone who had spent the majority of his life up until that point sleeping.
At night school, Zach began his fascination with science; finding a kind of Zen-like quality to the way everything had a connection in science if you looked hard enough. Soon enough he began to specialize in studying in biology, enjoying how it dealt with studying living things. Even after he graduated from night school, and went on to a normal University to continue his studies Zach stuck with the Air Force, partially because they were helping to pay for his education but mainly because he truly enjoyed it there. He quickly discovered, that by applying his science knowledge to the Air Force he was allowed to be involved in more, and more interesting projects. Eventually, his brains got him all the way to the Stargate project.
Zach was a last minute addition to the Atlantis mission; because most of his superiors felt he was too young to go - hell, he was practically fresh out of his masters program where he completed his studies in biology. However, when another biologist had to drop out last minute due to a family emergency they had no choice but to let Zach go.
Zach was promoted to First Lieutenant in August, 2005.
