Putting the Pieces Together

Legos are fun because sometimes you follow the instructions and sometimes you dump a crate of mismatched pieces on the floor and see what you can invent.

The elaborate kits with famous landmarks and movie spaceships are impressive but the most fun I ever had with Legos was as a kid digging through bins of random pieces collected from yard sales. Some days I’d start with a plan to build a fleet of spaceships while other days it was pure experimentation, combining pieces just to see where imagination could take me.

Years later working as a platform architect and developer still feels a lot like that.

I spend my days assembling systems, experimenting with ideas and figuring out how the right combination of components can create something innovative, scalable and genuinely useful. That instinct for modular thinking is what first drew me into Drupal and WordPress in the early 2000s. I loved the balance of structure and creativity, rapidly prototyping ideas and extending platforms beyond what they were originally designed to do.

“ The fun part has always been building something useful out of a pile of possibilities.”

My career as a developer started in politics building websites for local, state, federal and presidential campaigns where communication, technology and fast-moving problem solving all collided. Over the past twenty years I’ve worked with organizations across a wide range of industries building digital platforms, custom integrations and tools that help teams communicate and operate more effectively.

When I’m not building platforms I’m usually trying to build a better version of myself through running, fitness and outdoor adventures. My wife Abigail and I are both runners and when we’re not training there’s a good chance we’re playing social sports together where I captain local dodgeball and kickball teams.

Sprint, my Springerdoodle, helps make sure I never stay still for too long. Even in her senior years she still gets the zoomies and can’t resist a full-speed dash through the grass.