Obligatory “About Me” Section

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Origins

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I was born and raised in southern Oklahoma, in the United States. My family moved to central Tennessee when I was around 10 years old. A few years later we relocated to southern Ohio, right on the banks of the Ohio River.

In 2006 I headed west to Saint Louis, Missouri. This is where I found my wife and we started our family. After being here for 20+ years, by far the longest I’ve lived in one place, I think it’s safe to call myself a Saint Louisan.

Education / Work Experience

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1. 2002-2003

   Job

   Cashier

   Worked at "Big Bear" grocery store in Portsmouth, Ohio. Typical grocery store stuff happening there.
2. 2003

   Education

   Lutherie

   Attended a Lutherie training program in Snellville, Georgia. In the three months there I learned about building, repairing, and maintaining stringed instruments. We each built an electric guitar from raw wood to finished product and as a class built an acoustic guitar.
3. 2003

   Job

   Musical Instrument Sales / Repair

   After returning from Lutherie training I found a job in sales and instrument repair at a music store called Childer's Music Center in Portsmouth, Ohio. Responsibilities included sales of guitars, basses, drums, PA equipment, amps, violins, etc. as well as the repair, upgrading, and maintaining several types of stringed instruments - but mainly guitars and basses. Most jobs were crafting a custom nut and saddle for acoustic guitars out of bone and adding a piezo pickup to acoustic guitars. Loved the repair work, but I am not a natural-born salesman 😜.
4. 2006

   Job

   Telecom Line Burial

   Packed up and headed to Saint Louis. For several years I worked for my stepfather's business burying communications lines across the midwest. This included hand burying as well as running a machine to "plow" copper lines into the ground for large telecom companies. These lines were mostly the service lines from a terminal to a residence.
5. 2010

   Job

   Barista

   Worked at a coffee shop called "Cairdeas" around Saint Louis for a little over a year. I did go through some pretty great training on the sourcing, roasting, and preparation of coffee and coffee related drinks. Can still make some decent, basic latte art.
6. 2011

   Job

   Telecom Field Technician

   Got a real job working for AT&T as a field technician. I was the guy who climbed the pole, ran the line to your house, then did all the housework, and set up your Wi-Fi and/or TV service. Initially this was all copper line work, but later in my career here I also picked up fiber optic work (including some fiber splicing) and satellite TV experience.
7. 2016

   Job

   Senior Training Manager

   Moved into a temporary role with AT&T as a training manager / instructor. During this period I was responsible for traveling to various locations around the US and training new recruit technicians on how to do the job I had done for years. It was on me to teach people right "off the street" to climb a pole with a belt and gaffs, how to connect fiber and copper lines, how the internet and networking in general worked, and all the points in between. We had people who had never held a drill or had eny clue how Wi-Fi worked and I had to get them ready on a base level to perform that work in the field. During this time I was partially self-managed. It was my responsibility to plan all my travel arrangements and write up expense reports as well as perform maintenance on the training facilities as needed.
8. 2018

   Education

   Code Upskill

   Feeling the need for a career change I was selected for a "Grow with Google" scholarship. Out of an initial 100,000 + applicants only roughly 1,000 of us made it into the course. The course was for Front End Web Development and spanned several months. This is where the foundation for my real dev skills was laid. Ever since junior high I had messed with HTML and a bit of JavaScript but had not really done anything with it. This was a chance to turn that curiosity into a new career.
9. 2019

   Job

   Web Developer - Senior Software Engineer

   After completing the course and applying at a few places I found the next opportunity with Joyce Meyer Ministries. Initially I was hired to do minor web work inside a clunky CMS, but over time a few of us were moved into the proper IT department and began working on "real" software. During my time here I was responsible for writing, testing, and documenting a wide range of tech including: C#/Dotnet, SQL, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Salesforce Apex, Azure Applications / Deployment, Azure DevOps, and many connecting pieces between the software running on the technologies.
10. Present

    Job

    Senior Software Engineer

    Still with Joyce Meyer Ministries and loving my time here. Plenty of different things to do, never a dull moment!