Off Duty
How a kid who liked taking things apart in Milwaukee ended up designing and building software.
01
I split my childhood between school years in Milwaukee and summers in Chicago. Long before I had any technical vocabulary for it, I was taking things apart — radios, toys, anything with screws — just to see how the pieces fit and what they could become if I rebuilt them smaller, or into something else entirely. I wasn't especially skilled at it. I just couldn't leave a closed system alone.
02
Skateboarding took over by middle school and didn't let go for years. The trick I'm proudest of is a laser flip; the biggest set I ever cleared was seven stairs. It wasn't really about the tricks — it was hundreds of failed attempts in a row, in public, until one of them landed. That tolerance for repetition stuck with me longer than the board did.
03
South Division wasn't the strongest school in Milwaukee, but I went looking for whatever would keep my brain occupied — chess club, art club, Upward Bound, College Possible, Sponsor a Scholar. Upward Bound in particular changed the trajectory of my life. Those programs didn't just prep me for college; they were the first systems I trusted enough to actually rely on.
04
I studied math and statistics at Colorado College on the Block Plan — one class at a time, at a pace that left no room to coast. I failed a few classes before I understood how the system actually worked, then adapted, and my grades caught up to my comfort. Math wasn't quite it for me, so I paired it with the technical drawing and art courses I was already drawn to and helped establish a new major at the school: Innovative Design and Architecture.
05
I graduated in 2019 thinking architecture was the plan. COVID hit in 2020, sent me back to Milwaukee, and the architecture jobs I was applying for just weren't biting. Grad school wasn't something I wanted to go back for, so instead of waiting it out, I pivoted — locked in and taught myself to code, starting with HTML, then CSS, then Python until I needed real DOM manipulation and landed on JavaScript.
06
Since 2020 I've been building for the web — mostly front end, increasingly comfortable on the back end. I use AI to move faster while teaching myself the parts I don't yet know, but the judgment about what to build and why still has to be mine. The same instinct that had me taking things apart as a kid is still the one running the show: learn how it actually works, then put it back together better.
Systems thinking didn't start with software — it started with skateboards, scholarship programs, and a major I had to invent because the one I wanted didn't exist yet. The work I do now is the same instinct, just with better tools.