Making things is fun.
I knew at a young age I wanted to build things. Despite neither of my parents being technical at all, I couldn't stop taking things apart and trying to build new things from them. One of my first "robots" at age 7 was me taking apart a dancing flower, using the circuit and motor in it to trigger on sound, building a cardboard robot, and tying the mouth to the motor so it moved whenever there was loud enough sound. Then I recorded a message on a tape recorder, stuck it in there, and when I pressed play it would "talk." I brought this in for show and tell and, as you can imagine, I was the coolest kid in class and definitely didn't get teased at all.
Really, my parents should have seen this coming. When I was about 5, I asked Santa for paper bags, tape, paper cups, etc. The Santa looked at my parents like, Really?! What are you doing to this poor kid? I just wanted construction materials to build things. At one point my mom had to ask family to stop sending me electronic toys for gifts because I would just take them apart in about 1 day. I was just as happy with broken gadgets for parts.
That same little kid who can't wait to tear something apart and learn how it works never changed — he just got older and was able to afford more expensive tools.
Fast forward some years: at 16 I started working IT, diving into computers — software, hardware, networking, servers. Eventually, after a successful decade in IT, I found myself in Seattle managing 70+ locations across the country, but bored and burnt out. I wanted to design things, not provide support for them. I was still building hobbyist-level projects at home, programming microcontrollers and dreaming big, so I decided to go back to school for an Electrical Engineering degree. Along the way I asked so many questions about why things behaved the way they did that a teacher finally said, "I don't know — go talk to the physics department!" So I did. That's how I ended up doing two degrees at once. College was also where I found my love of Linux, becoming president of the Linux Users Group on campus. Throw in some IEEE competitions, an independent research program, a math minor, and a spot on the school's Autonomous Aerial Vehicle competition team, and 4.5 years later you have a very tired Engineer/Physicist with a couple of BS degrees.
About the only consistent thing in my career is my insatiable desire to learn new skills, new fields, and new applications. I have been fortunate to work on some incredible projects with amazing people and amass more skills than any sane person would ever attempt.
I love teaching. I've designed and run classes and workshops in schools and makerspaces. I'm on a mission to revolutionize how we learn. I want to give young minds (and the young at heart) yearning for discovery like mine was, all the resources I never had.
I actually typed out all my interests and realized it's way too long. Ain't nobody got time for that™. So let's just list off a few key areas and you can discover the rest in "The Lab" writeups. Cybersecurity (#badgelife), wrenching on engines, metal/woodworking, additive manufacturing (3D printing), powerful lasers, bioinformatics, neurodiversity, psychology (We are the most complex systems of all), Agentic AI, lots of outdoor activities, and of course anything running on electrons.
I am sure my greatest regret in life will be that there could never be enough time to learn and do all the things I want to learn and do in this universe. A million lifetimes wouldn't be enough.
But hey, while I'm here, I'll share what I can share and do what I can do. I'm enormously fortunate to do what I've loved doing since I was a child, every day.
