Really-Tall-Building-Elevator Pitch
If you have a little more time.
When I was four I found a metal coil spring in the alley behind our house. I proceeded to make a working pinball machine from it. Around that time, I also learned how to ride a bike in the same alley. It was a big year for me.
I haven’t stopped riding bikes or being fascinated by how things work; physically, visually, linguistically, and conceptually. A teacher in grade school saw my interest in art, and my attempts at humor and wit, and suggested I go into advertising. Being eight at the time I didn’t really know what a job was or what to do with career advice, so I just kept drawing and tinkering.
With that curiosity and an obsession for drawing, storytelling, books, illustration and graphic design, I wound up in art school. I reveled in learning each new medium and binged art history like it was a Netflix series. I changed from an illustration specific major to a general BFA to support my polyamorous academic pursuits, thinking breadth of knowledge would somehow be equally as valuable as depth in one particular medium or discipline.
After graduating, I had various careers utilizing the varied skills and knowledge I gathered; mostly in art galleries and graphic design. On my own, I continued painting, photography, printmaking, working on children’s book ideas, and screenwriting.
I remember writing my first <html> in the year 2000. Creating portfolios for my design, illustration, and art is what drew me into the web. I continued making new personal sites and continued learning with each iteration. Flash, CSS, Apache, FireBug, content management systems, PHP, and SQL, JS, and so on, and so on.
After 10 years of design, independent web projects, HTML emails, and digital marketing and fundraising, I had enough demonstrable experience to convince someone to let me do it for a living. And that’s what I’ve been doing since 2010.
I was eventually able to take my grade school teacher’s advice and get a job in advertising. It was a wonderful feeling finding a home for curious creative generalists. I was able to take everything I had caught in my weird wide net over the years and apply it to the digital projects we pitched and were awarded.
Images!
For emotional impact and a sense of relatability.



































Bullets
Interests, hobbies, and passions. If you’re into word clouds, I think these would be stratocumulus.
- Family
- Wordplay
- Bikes
- The out of doors
- Podcasts
- Comedy
- Podcasts about comedy
- Coffee
- Baking / eating baked goods
- Design
- Typographical accid ents
- History
- Travel & adventure
- Human-centric urban design and transportation
- Peanut M&M’s®
- Renewable energy
- Jacques Tati
- France
- The Netherlands
- Gardening
- Movies
- TVs
- Engineering
- Old houses
Work History
Greatest, most relevant-est, hits.
Washington University Marketing & Communications
Director of Web Development
2021 – Present
Paradowski Creative
Technology Strategy Lead / Technology Director / Developer
2015 – 2021
Arsenal Studios
Desginer / Developer
2011 – 2014
Steady Rain
Desginer / Developer
2010 – 2011
Missouri Botanical Garden
Desginer
2002 – 2004
The Wormser Company
Desginer
2000 – 2002
School History
Art Institute of Chicago
1998 – 1999 – BFA – Illustration and Design
Rhode Island School of Design
1997 – 1998 – Illustration
Winthrop University
1995 – 1997 – Fine Art