BIO   · · ·

•  BACKGROUND

I was born and raised in the Columbus, Ohio area, the youngest of three kids.

My step-father was a teacher, so we had several summers of 4-week long vacations traveling across the US. Out of the 50 states, I haven't been to five of them - Alaska, Hawaii, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Maine.

I believe that my love of books was started very early in life - before I was school age - as my mother volunteered in the library at the elementary school attened by my older brothers. I was brought along, and given books to entertain me while in the library office.

My musical bent was developed by my parents, and from 4th grade thru high school I played the viola. Throughout high school, there was a friendly on-going challenge with a fellow classmate over which one of us occupied the first chair of the viola section.

My interest in photography was started in high school, where besides learning B&W basics, I also learning about developing and mounting color slides.

I attended the College of Art and Design, graduating with a BFA in Interior Design. As things in my life seem to go, the quarter after I graduated, the college made Photography a full major, instead of an area of study under the Fine Arts major.

When the sign company I was working at closed its doors, I took the opportunity to sedate my "Go West, young man" yen. Although I'm a 'sun' person, I ended up in 'rainy' Seattle. Shortly after arriving in Seattle, I got a job with Eddie Bauer – couturier of the Pacific Northwest lifestyle – initially working at the local center and then transferring over to the corporate campus. Like the Bauer bunnies that once inhabitated the wooden grounds of the corporate campus, I was part of a company downsizing and was let go.

It seemed somewhat ironic that I both ended and started a decade in my life unemployed.

Enjoying a brief respite from the world of work; I took advantage of the Worker Retraining program offered by the State of Washington and returned to school attending the Seattle Central Community College. I've completed the required coursework for and have received a certificate in Web Development. I have one remaining course left to also obtain certificates in Programming, and in Database Administration & Development. Three outstanding courses are needed to complete an AA degree in Web Development. In the last year of school, I was accepted as a intern on the Seattle Community College district web team.

In the summer of 2003, as the webmaster for the Seattle Men's Chorus member site,
I re-designed the site from it's static HTML format into a dynamic ASP-based site, thereby enabling the addition of features not available when written in a static format.

•  CURRENTLY

I am currently the Web Team Lead / Project Developer for the Seattle Community Colleges district web team. ( The former team lead left while I was an intern, and I assume some of his responsiblities and eventually applied for the open position. ) The web team is comprised of current / recent students from all three colleges that make up the district. It was a program started by the current webmaster in 2000.

We are currently developing new services for both the intranet used by employees of the district and the district's main site, while also maintaining and updating the current service offered. We recently completed a redesign of the district 'public' site using ASP NET 2.0. All the new services are being built using NET 2.0.

I am also the webmaster for Flying House Productions (FHP) - FHP is the umbrella operating entity for the Seattle Men's Chorus and Seattle Women's Chorus - overseeing both the public and the member sites.