About Me
Who I Am
I'm a Michigan-born, Bay Area transplant who believes work should enable life. I may be a designer and developer by trade, but my passions extend far beyond the digital world.
After 15 years in California, I've found it to be the ever-evolving base for all my adventures. You'll find me running trails, tinkering with my bikes, carving down snowy slopes, or exploring the East Bay with my dog Roo and my wife Ashley.
Career Story
I started out developing on the web like many others from my generation, customizing MySpace so girls in the grade above me would talk to me on AIM. What was just a fun hobby that could help friends every once in a while turned into a passion for building things on the web. Working with the right people as I grew my skills taught me that the best digital products not only solve real problems in the real world, but make people feel good while doing it. I've been lucky to work with some amazing people and on some amazing projects, and hope I've made a positive impact through design.
In the beginning (2008-2012)
I started as a student developer and graphic design intern at MSU while in school. I used everything I had learned to land a job as a web designer & developer at Arena Solutions. Those early years built the muscle memory and CSS knowledge battling browsers like IE6.
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Helped professors build out online classrooms and courses when it was still new
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Built engaging content and edited videos that helped students learn at their own pace
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Created marketing assets that made enterprise software seem human
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Set up coding standards so our websites followed best practices and were maintainable
Innovation Focus (2012-2014)
I spent two wild years at OkCupid Labs and GoPro, where I got to try new ideas focused on connecting people and creating experiences across different devices. In both roles, the main goal was to experiment with new ideas or in new markets to find the next big thing.
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Built photo apps that helped people find others who loved the same weird stuff they did
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Designed for Xbox, iPhones, and web browsers to reach a wide audience
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Watched, listened, and learned from real people trying to use what we were building
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Worked side-by-side with engineers, often pair programming, to make high quality interfaces
Client is King (2014-2020)
During my six years at thoughtbot, I got to work with everyone from tiny startups to huge companies. I wasn't just designing products – I was growing other designers and helping clients figure out what they actually needed.
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Ran Design Sprints that helped startups start gaining real traction as soon as possible
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Built "just enough" products that answered the big questions quickly
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Used my coding background to design experiences that were feasible and followed best practices
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Showed design apprentices the ropes using real client projects and real problems
Security & Enterprise (2020-Present)
Lately, I've tackled the tricky world of enterprise security - first as a freelancer and then full-time with Material Security. I've been focused on making technical security products feel natural for all users.
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Took Data Protection for Google Drive from a concept to a real product security teams actually use
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Established design patterns that helped developers build without focusing on the UI
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Worked across the entire organization to prioritize features that actually matter
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Built complex, trustworthy security workflows with clear patterns and consistent design