My sister Joanie and I

I grew up in Lancaster County, PA, never realizing the beauty of my home until I left. Childhood was spent learning the life lessons of hard work, dedication, perseverance and teamwork through playing sports, and eventually discovering a passion for music. My musical activities took me throughout the east coast and midwest, playing with various local and national artists, as well as numerous music festivals, honors orchestras, and regional symphonies.

I went on to study music and computer science at Indiana University, where I met my wife and better half, Sarah. Our life together is like a three stranded cord, and I’ve come to realize I cannot imagine life without her.

My professional background has been largely in custom applications development, particularly in Java and some .NET environments.  I spent several years doing systems integration consulting with large, multinational corporations and public entities.

Since fall 2010, I have been the Web Programmer for Waukegan Public Schools, our local school district.  Our web presence is a MAMP shop, however I do find opportunities to flex other, non-Web related muscles, including Java and Perl programming.

My role requires a little bit of everything: project management and requirements gathering, systems and data design and analysis, customer support, and of course, programming.  Given the budgetary and human capital constraints in the district, I end up needing to prioritize functionality and teacher support over more public facing and aesthetic concerns, but hopefully that will shift as time goes on.

I haven’t really developed many technical specialties, although areas of interest include anything in the design realm — whether it be User Interface, component / class interaction, or database object design — as well as SQL query tuning and optimization.  Most of all, I like to try to solve problems in a way that is elegant and organized (I hope).

I am beginning to realize just how much a loving God gives us that we can never possibly deserve or merit, and just how captive I am to his grace. I am also beginning to realize to what extent my family has sacrificed to allow me to enjoy the life I now lead, with all its blessings.