I am a front end web developer and designer from Nashville, TN, and I like making things.

A Short History

For fifteen years, I have been designing and developing websites. Over the course of my career, I’ve been fortunate enough to do a little bit of everything for a variety of companies large and small. I am now the grizzled old guy who has seen it all and speaks only in cryptic zen koans. I find I like this station of life quite a bit… I don’t even miss having hair!

Some highlights in my career include leading a team in graphic standards across a large e-commerce site, developing the front end of a travel agency-esque booking system, creating a mailing admin with dynamic template building and content creation, keeping a legacy codebase up and running while rebuilding it piece by piece, creating a patient managed care single page application, developing an HTML and CSS system that tightly integrated with a CMS powering over 600 web sites, and designing, developing, and creating all the art for a video game with a great friend of mine—just for the pure fun of it.

I have never neatly fit into a single category in our industry because I’m a very curious person. Once I become interested in something I have to learn all that I can about it. While I was earning a BFA in Graphic Design during my college days, I taught myself how to code while working a summer internship on the web team at a large corporation. I discovered that I enjoyed coding as much as I did design and art, and I never looked back. I started with simple HTML and CSS, venturing in the worlds of Sass and jQuery and various Content Management Systems as they hit the scene. I progressed into writing SPAs in BackboneJS and VueJS and discovered I really like writing JavaScript. These days I write most things from scratch in Vanilla JS because I think it’s more interesting and enjoyable.

Creative problem solving is why I find building software fun. I want to craft elegant things in which I can take pride, and that I know will benefit and serve the people who use it. My goal has never been to move up a corporate ladder or to manage people but rather to solve problems and to make things. This is where my true passion rests, and I plan to continue doing it for some time.


Skills

I certainly fall into the generalist category. I can design an interface or user flow or logo. I can pick up and learn any JS framework you want, or write my own plugins from scratch. I love collaborating closely with backend developers to create features that delight the people who use them. The web is amazing to me, and I love working with it. How about a more concrete list of things I can do? Here come the buzzwords.

  • HTML
  • CSS/Sass
  • Vanilla JS
  • VueJS
  • Single Page Applications
  • Automated Testing (Cypress, Jest)
  • CMS Integration
  • Refactoring Legacy Systems
  • E-commerce Sites
  • Project Planning
  • Brand and Style Guide Design
  • Design Systems
  • UI Design
  • Prototyping
  • Marketing Sites
  • Dad jokes
  • Common sense
  • Being a sane, decent adult

Colophon

I'm doing a thing I do not typically do… I am following a trend. At least, I think it is. I am rebuilding my portfolio site, live in the wild, the site that is a work in progress that changes day to day.

The design of this very page, particularly the header, lead to the creation of the underlying grid system that shapes this site. The work of Tom Eckersley influenced the home page design immensely, and ultimately guided the site's overall style. And the excellent Interstate typeface by Frere-Jones Type is what you are reading now.

If you need some prime entertainment, do come back every few days to see what new and startling nuances I bring to this until I deem it finished.