I am a full-stack software engineer with a leaning towards front-end, specializing in Laravel & Vue (occasionally delving into WordPress).

I loved science as a kid. I wrote my first HTML page in 1996.

As a teenager, I developed a passion for understanding, building, and troubleshooting computers. I watched the movie 'Hackers' more times than I care to admit. While my educational journey was nontraditional - leaving high school early, then earning my GED - I did receive a full scholarship to college. However, I ultimately decided to leave college prematurely as well. In lieu of formal education, I obtained my A+ certification and devoted the majority of my 20s to working in the field of computer hardware and networking.

In 2009, I found myself working as a support technician for a company focused on grocery-store point-of-sale systems. Everyone at the company was answering support calls and logging everything manually using pen and paper. With a near-constant influx of calls from clients, it's safe to say this system was far from ideal.

At the time, I knew just enough PHP to be dangerous. Thus, I embarked on building a basic system using PHP and MySQL to log support issues for our clients - and for the sake of my own sanity. I balanced my customer support job during the day with evenings spent at my apartment, continually building more features into this ticket system software. Eventually, my colleagues requested access to it and, in time, my entire office was using it.

At one point, a manager from our Florida branch visited our Chicago office and took notice of the system we were all using. He liked what he saw and inquired about the feasibility of implementing it in their office as well.

Following discussions with management about deployment and structuring, my software ended up in half of our offices nationwide, including our company headquarters in Nebraska. Consequently, working on and supporting the system became a significant part of my role, and I continue to license and support it to this day. I eventually branded the software and have been preparing for a commercial release for the past year or so. This journey was the catalyst for my self-taught coding education in HTML, CSS, PHP, SQL, and more over the years.

Instead of binge-watching Netflix, I was hooked on Lynda.com (now LinkedIn Learning), PluralSight, Udemy, YouTube, StackOverflow, later Laracasts etc., all in an effort to learn as much as possible.

By 2013, my confidence in my coding skills had grown enough for me to switch career paths - and that's exactly what I did. Over the last decade, I've remained dedicated to continuous learning and have been working in an industry I absolutely love.