About Me
I'm a web developer living in the Greater Philadelphia Area of Pennsylvania with my wife and our goldendoodle, August. I enjoy hiking, tabletop games, video games, reading, and learning new technologies.
This wasn't always what I planned to do. I grew up Huntingdon Valley, PA and went to the University of Pittsburgh. I earned a B.A. with majors in English Literature and English Writing (Fiction), intending to teach secondary English. The Master's program I got into was rather expensive, and the deadline came shortly after Pittsburgh Public Schools laid of about 1/3 of its teaching staff, so I decided to hold off. I worked as a youth director at a synagogue before my then-girlfriend and I moved back home to Philadelphia for a year where I got into another, thriftier Master's program. Philadelphia, similarly, cleaned house - this time, I believe it was 1/4 of their schoolteachers. Education, it seemed, was not the path for me. I took assorted jobs and casually began to tinker with coding courses, trying to better myself and sate a longstanding interest.
It turns out that I would rediscover my path in Omaha, NE, where we moved so my girlfriend could attend Creighton University's School of Dentistry. I seized opportunities to take programming courses at the local community college and volunteer with the local CoderDojo. I ended up landing my first development job with Omaha Media Group and enrolled at Bellevue University in their Software Development Accelerated Cohort program. In our last year and a half or so of our time in Omaha, I earned my B.S. in Software Development, gained invaluable experience in web development, and proposed to my now-wife. As much as we adored the city of Omaha, we decided to uproot our lives to move to Nashville, TN and try something new.
We settled in and spent a year in Tennessee. She worked in a dental practice and I bounced around a bit before finding a place at the State of Tennessee. We got married, honeymooned in France, and plotted out our next move. After several significant discussions, we decided to come back home to Philadelphia to be closer to family and friends. In the meantime, I've found some cool projects to work on and I'm continuing to learn new things. I'm working on learning React, testing JS, and more. I'm passionate about creating excellent tools and technologies to support my hobbies of tabletop and video gaming. I'm always interested in side projects, so be sure to contact me if there's something you think I could help with!