I’ve been a software engineer in one form or another fo 25+ years. Coming from humble beginnings as an aspiring comic book artist, I got my start initially as a Flash Animator at an ad agency. I did a deep dive into learning ActionScript and got my first taste of programming — I was hooked!
I had a great time building rich interactive online experiences for brands like KFC, Taco Bell and Circuit City during the golden age of Flash. After Steve Jobs singlehandedly killed by tech platform of choice, I got on the HTML5 bandwagon and was an early adopter of responsive web design. I created a few viral open source projects like Scrollorama, BigVideo and Responsivator.
I decided to leave the digital ad business to work for a startup as their first full-time developer hire. After helping scale that business until it was acquired, I've continued to work as a Staff Software Engineer (and sometimes Engineering Manager) at mission-driven tech companies like GiveSmart, Community Brands and now VEG, ER for Pets.
I live in the suburbs of Chicago with my amazing wife and our two boys. In my spare time, I like to create stuff for fun, like experimental web apps, novels, screenplays and other random stuff that pretty much no one ever sees except for me. I also like to camp, cook and ponder the nature of the universe.
My code has been featured in...
CSS Tricks | Hacker News | Awwwards | Webmonkey | JavaScript Weekly | Frontend Focus | Codrops | Wired | Web Tools Weekly | The JavaScript Show | Unheap | The Next Web | Impressive Webs | Think Vitamin | sfist | jquer.in | The Verge | The Treehouse Show | Tuts+ | DailyJS | Web Resources Depot | Codehum | instantShift | Web Resources Depot | Award-Winning Websites
I've gotten the chance to speak at...
Front End Camp | Techweek Chicago | Prototype Camp | CHIHTML5