About

Hello, and welcome to my website. I'm a software engineer at Kindred, a lifelong learner, and a former national-team volleyball player. This page is the long version of how a kid from Edmonton ended up building software on the other side of the country.

I grew up tall, and I've stood out my whole life whether I wanted to or not. Volleyball found me early and gave that gangly, uncoordinated kid direction, a path, and a dream. The game took me across North America and onto Canada's Youth and Junior National Teams for three summers, next to athletes I'm lucky to call friends. It gave me my highest highs and my lowest lows, and more than anything it taught me how to get back up.

The road through it was rough. My first year at McMaster was a lonely one, Covid wiped out the second, and just as I was finding my footing in the third, a concussion put me on the sidelines. I needed a change, so I headed back home to Alberta.

I enrolled at the University of Calgary for a year, close to family again. I wanted to start moving toward computer science, but the school wouldn't let me in because of a grade twelve course I'd already covered in a university class. A couple of surgeries later, still fighting to keep playing, I decided to look elsewhere. That is when I moved to Halifax, for one last shot at the game I loved and a real chance to chase computer science at Dalhousie.

While I was there, a fifth concussion ended my volleyball career for good. I chose safety over passion, and I wrote about that goodbye in a letter to the game. Looking back, I think there was a reason for all of it. Part of me believes God put those hard years in front of me so I would learn what only they could teach. I don't feel like I ever reached the potential I had in me, and that is something I will have to live with. But if I had reached it, I'm not sure I would be sitting here now, and I've come to believe this is exactly where I'm meant to be.

Walking away left a void. Competition had lived in me my whole life, and without it I needed somewhere new to put that fire. I found it in building.

I knew breaking into tech would be brutal. I had no industry experience, and dropping my resume onto a pile with hundreds of others felt like a death sentence. So in the summer of 2024 I did the thing that scares most people. I reached out. I cold messaged company after company on LinkedIn, introduced myself, and asked for a chance, and it worked. I'm a long way from having any real answers or life wisdom, but if there is one thing I believe, it's that most people won't take that extra step. My dad taught me a long time ago not to let a piece of paper speak for me. To my first job interview I wore a pink button-up shirt, and after I got hired they started calling me the pink shirt guy. Standing out has never been optional for me (at six foot seven), so I've learned to lean into it.

I'm a lifelong learner, and I think that is most of what life is about. It is also why this work fits me: constant problem solving, very little monotony, and learning that never ends. You can never really master programming, and that is exactly what I love about it.

Today I build the core systems behind technology that helps people grow their emotional intelligence, a skill the world tends to overlook. I care about work that has real impact on people's lives, and about learning from the talented people around me every day.

I built this website to show how I think and how I see things, to give anyone curious a real sense of who I am and how I work, and to keep a home for my own thoughts. A busy mind needs somewhere to put things down, and this is mine.

A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor. I've been through some rough water these past few years, and I'm grateful for every wave of it. I don't have it all figured out, but I'm ready for whatever comes next.