I'm someone whose interests have never fit neatly into one box. I'm a musician, animal lover, problem-solver, technology enthusiast, creative thinker, and someone who genuinely enjoys being useful to other people.

Music has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I have a B.A. in Music from Truman State University, with percussion as my primary area, and I also play piano. Over the years, I've performed in wind ensembles, jazz groups, drumline, community ensembles, churches, and other live settings, and I've taught both percussion and piano. I still perform today, and music remains one of the places where I feel most naturally myself. I love the combination of creativity, precision, collaboration, and the challenge of figuring out how all the individual parts fit together.

Animals are another huge part of who I am. I have always cared deeply about them, and I'm the kind of person who notices their personalities, worries about their well-being, researches what they need, and gets genuinely excited when an animal learns something or communicates in a new way. That interest has even crossed into my technology work through PawStop, a project I started developing as a resource platform for pet owners. I like the idea of using technology to solve practical problems for people while also improving life for animals.

Professionally, my path has been unconventional. I spent more than 13 years working in warehouse, quality, inventory, and operations environments, including roles at ALDI and Walmart. That experience taught me how organizations actually function on the ground: how people communicate, where processes break down, how small problems become large ones, and how important it is to have people who are willing to notice problems and figure them out. I've worked in quality control, inventory, training, workflow coordination, supervision, documentation, and fast-paced operational environments where decisions have real consequences.

Eventually, I realized that one of the things I enjoyed most was solving problems rather than simply following an established process. That led me back to school, where I earned an A.A.S. in Computer Information Systems and a Software Developer Certificate from Johnson County Community College in 2026, graduating with a 3.77 GPA.

Technology opened an entirely different creative outlet for me. I've worked with SQL, JavaScript, Python, Django, HTML/CSS, Git, databases, deployment, debugging, testing, and web development, and I've built projects ranging from pet-resource platforms to websites and other applications. What interests me most isn't technology for its own sake. I like figuring out why something isn't working, imagining how it could work better, organizing complicated information, and turning an idea into something people can actually use.

I also have a strong creative and entrepreneurial streak. I'm constantly coming up with ideas — for websites, products, marketing concepts, improvements, businesses, creative projects, or completely different ways of approaching a problem. I tend to look at something and immediately start thinking, "Why is it done this way?" or "Wouldn't it make more sense if…?" Sometimes that shows up in technology, sometimes in operations, sometimes in music, and sometimes in ideas that don't fit neatly into any existing category.

I'm detail-oriented and quality-focused, but I'm also very people-oriented. I like helping people, teaching people, explaining things, and making complicated things easier to understand. I'm personable, curious, independent, and willing to question something when it doesn't make sense. Fairness matters a lot to me, and I have a difficult time simply ignoring something that feels inefficient, inconsistent, or wrong.

I also have a sense of humor about myself. I can be serious about doing something well without wanting life to feel serious all the time. I like creativity, personality, interesting people, animals, music, learning new things, and work where I can actually see a purpose behind what I'm doing.

The common thread through almost everything I've done is curiosity. Whether I'm learning a piece of music, troubleshooting code, researching something for one of my animals, analyzing a process, building a website, helping someone solve a problem, or dreaming up a completely new project, I want to understand how things work — and then see whether I can make them work a little better.

I don't think my ideal future is one where I have to choose between being "technical," "creative," "musical," "analytical," or "good with people." I'm all of those things. I'm happiest when I have room to think, create, solve problems, learn, contribute, and still have enough freedom left to be a musician, spend time with animals, pursue my own ideas, and actually enjoy my life.

More than anything, I'm still figuring out exactly what title belongs on that combination — but I know the kind of life I want to build: one that is interesting, meaningful, creative, financially sustainable, and leaves room for the parts of me that matter outside of work.