About Me
A lifelong maker, learner, and creative problem solver
What Drives Me
I've been building things on the web since I was 12. By 15, I was receiving checks in the mail for Flash animations and website design work—much to my parents' surprise. That early start taught me something invaluable: the joy of bringing ideas to life and solving problems through creativity and code.
Throughout my career, I've remained driven by curiosity and a genuine love of learning. Whether it's mastering new design tools, understanding user behavior, or exploring emerging technologies, I'm energized by learning, being creative, or consuming creative things.
Beyond design and technology, I'm passionate about my family, photography, music, writing, and nature.
My journey
I grew up in Cowley, Wyoming—population 477—where my uncle gifted us a computer when I was 6 or 7. I promptly "fixed" it by deleting Windows system files. That machine had a 4MB hard drive and ran Norton Commander, teaching me early lessons in both curiosity and consequence.
By the mid-90s, I became what my parents called an "internet pioneer." Online gaming communities needed clan websites, and I taught myself HTML while devouring science fiction novels. In high school, I built the school's first website. During my first year of community college, I transformed the student newspaper into a digital publication.
At university, I served as Assistant Webmaster and managed all publications and web initiatives for the Admissions office, including developing an interactive cost calculator for prospective students. I even found myself helping my digital media professor teach the class on several occasions—a point of smug adolescent pride.
Creating software has always brought me deep satisfaction. Seeing an idea evolve from concept to reality never gets old. After college, I spent time at a video game studio before transitioning into user experience design (then called "interaction design"). This path led me to Amazon, where I spent 14 years (2011-2025) designing products used by millions of customers.
Today, I bring decades of hands-on experience, relentless curiosity, and a maker's mindset to every project. I believe the best work happens when passion meets purpose—and I'm excited to bring both to my next challenge.
Writing
My passion for reading started in the 4th grade. In 6th grade I read 20x the assigned number of pages and found my passion for tech—and forgot about being social until my sophomore of high school.
In the early 2010s, I read articles about self-publishing, received a kindle as a gift, and after I read Immediate Fiction by Jerry Cleaver I decided I could write a book. I finished my first novel in 2017. Genesis is 97k words and was written as a 'pantser' with no plan, which was an adventure all by itself. Writing a novel was both difficult and immensely satisfying especially when crafting meaningful human moments that evoke emotion. In the end, what really matters is that my family loved it and laughed a lot when they read it.
These authors inspired me
It was around this time that I read Atomic Habits by James Clear. It helped me understand how to build better habits and that inspired me to create a Google Docs Addon called WritingHabit. Eventually, the limited capability of Google Docs Addons led me to create a responsive web app that helps writers build a daily writing habit by tracking their progress and providing motivation through leaderboards, streaks, achievements, goals, challenges, and visible progress that's fun.
WritingHabit has a wide array of tools and I've included it in my portfolio projects. Why include a personal project? It's awesome and authors who use the app report a 2-5x increase in word count and their expressions of delight and gratitude are immensely satisfying. Additionally, it provides an excellent test bed for both learning, exploring ideas, and pressure testing AI assisted development. Most recently, I used AI to develop migration scripts, diagnostic tools, an event management (promotions) system that controls ad placements, and a gift code purchase and redemption experience.
My vision for WritingHabit is to enable authors to write more and with higher quality using iterative feedback loops. This involves making it fun, satisfying, and giving them tools that automate the busy work. Author's activities include planning, writing, getting feedback, formatting, publishing, and monetizing their work. At the moment, WritingHabit covers the first four. Today's roadmap includes expanding the offering to other writing apps. I recently completed the first version of a Chrome Extension that will enable many features in other online editors to better meet authors "where they live." In the future, I expect WritingHabit to allow authors to monetize their process much like YouTube creators by enabling authors to provide early access to their subscribers or sell their content directly with minimal effort from the author.
Photography
People are awesome. My photo journey started when I got tired of JC Penny family photos and convinced my wife to let me buy a camera.
Over the last 20 years, I've had the privilege of watching people light up when they see their photos again and again. I love capturing moments that help people remember their loved ones and history.
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