Matt Koren was born in December 1972 in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The son of a career Army officer, he moved repeatedly and lived in Germany, Arizona, Kansas, Washington, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. He attended college at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN where he majored in History and played four years of NCAA soccer. Upon graduation in May 1995, he was commissioned an officer in the United States Marine Corps and served as a tank platoon commander, company executive officer and company commander until January 2000, all with 1^st Tank Battalion located in Twentynine Palms, California. In September 2000, he was hired as a professional sales representative for Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America where he worked for three years before enrolling in the University of Denver School of Law. He graduated with honors in May 2006 and accepted a position as an attorney with the Denver based law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. In June 2007, his Marine Corps reserve unit was deployed to Iraq where Major Koren commanded a tank platoon and conducted numerous counter-insurgency operations across Al Anbar Province. Upon his return to Denver, he rejoined Brownstein where he currently practices real estate law.