Random Things About Me

When I was 8 years old I received my first computer as a Christmas present. It was a 486 SX 33 with 4 MB of RAM, 500 MB hard drive (IDE 100), with a double speed CD-ROM. It rocked DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11. I spent about as much time taking it apart as I did playing Warlords and God of Thunder.

Since then I knew I wanted to work on PCs when I grew up. I was lucky enough to have a father who was the computer tech in my very rural town in southern Illinois. I spent a lot of time at his repair shop learning about computers and a little about networking.

In High School I taught myself how to program in Visual Basic 6 using MS Access for my database. I ended up receiving college degrees in Information Systems Management focusing in information security. Life had other plans for me though. My first job after I graduated was in software development. Since then I have followed a career path that moved me from my rural to the city of Saint Louis, MO.

These days when I am not in front of a PC, I am being a dad and dabbling in one of my several hobbies. I like playing the occasional video game. When I am not in front of a screen, I like building things, playing basketball, and traveling. Woodworking is something I greatly enjoy, but I am definitely an amateur. I also enjoy listening to many different genres of music. The best kind though is when I get to listen to it live.

Professional Background

I have been working in the IT world since I was a kid. I learned a lot about working on PCs from him. Through the years I worked with him on projects for small businesses including networking and system maintenance. I went to college for Information Systems focusing in digital security.

I graduated college in 2013 and started my first "professional" job writing software for a medical billing company. Since then I have worked in a few different industires such as manufacturing, medical, environmental engineering, communications, financial, and a few others. I have held a few different roles through the years in different parts of IT, but somehow usually wind up going back to software development. At a previous company I also spent about a year as an IT Manager and an Executive working with other executives to run a manufacturing company.

Currently, I work for a consulting company working as the Business Intelligence Practice Lead. Working in a consulting role for most of my career has given me a lot of knowledge about different industiries as well as the ability to learn new ones quickly. That ability to learn new industires has drawn me to business intelligence where I have worked over half of my career. Professionally there is nothing more satisfying for me than helping companies streamline business processes and find ways to utilize data to make their business better.