My favorite tattoos were impulsive

Web designer, former Marine, by way of Florida.

Why am I a web designer? Well, since my early days of Photoshop 3 (way back in 1995) I've always liked exchanging information through the web; and back then, the web wasn't much to brag about. Now, especially NOW, the web is finally starting to live up to it's full potential. Print is sadly getting less and less popular, but inversely these companies that are slowing down in the print department are recognizing the business potential of interactive media. My mind still is blown that I can use Google Street View to see the house I grew up in in the rainy state (no, wait, the Sunshine State) of Florida. The world is now connected. With the growth of the web, there have been many new professions that have been created to make the web intuitive, completely usable and able to satisfy with the accessibility of information that the USER wants. Pretty much, the web is a place where, if you don't have a successful web presence, you're missing out on a whole lot.

I graduated from Virginia Tech, and it was in college that I discovered my calling. I started working at NewCity, a digital agency in Virginia, and under the direction of some really great designers, I started to grow in this field.

I didn't head straight to college like many of my peers after high school, but rather enlisted in the Marine Corps and served four years with the bulk of my time being at Security Force Battalion in Norfolk, VA. I was able to use my basic Photoshop skills to gain a bit of recognition by designing two official ensigns for the Non-Commissioned Officers Association and the Marine Corps Security Forces Battalion, and also designed "challenge coins" that were produced and given out as a kind of award. (It was also in the Marines that I taught myself to ride a unicycle. I would get the oddest looks from other Marines and Sailors, and I found so much humor in it that it fueled me to keep on riding.)

At Virginia Tech I was chosen to redesign the College of Architecture and Urban Studies website after winning a flash animation contest, and started my relationship with my first full-time agency, NewCity.

I got a good bit of traveling done when I was a student and lived in a small village named Huancapi in Peru in the region of Ayacucho for two summers and I see that as the most influential time of my life. No, not because I bought a monkey there, but because I was able to connect with those suffering from social-injustice and that influenced me to want to one day work with organizations that I agree with that focus on these same things.

Now that you know a little about me, maybe I should get to know you!