Here’s my short story.
I was born and raised in the stunning, Wasatch Mountains of Park City, Utah.
Park City might conjure up Sundance, mountain villas of Deer Valley, or the lights lining up and down Main Street. It is all that, but when I lived there, it was a small, rural ski town that my family, our cousins, and friends thought that we owned, not in small part to the fact the public transportation is incredible.
Of course, life is never that simple.
After a few years and several false starts, at twenty years old I quit college and opened a small, custom bicycle shop in the North End of Boise, Idaho full of a fiery crew of mechanics and me running it by the skin of my teeth. This decision eventually led me to development and would change the course of my career.
In the later years of my shop, I tried to build a website and did not succeed at any measure.
I had built a reputation for weekly rides, an available open shop, who made beautiful, simple, and beautiful bicycles — with a purpose. The writing was on the wall though if I couldn’t reach a bigger audience, what good is it? For those of us in business, my solution has always been, I’ll learn it.
Five years later, I collected my new skills, past experiences, and beliefs and started up with the Department of Interior, supported, designed, and published work on how to use a new system replacing field notes kept in the back pockets of Wildland Fire Managers.
The IQCS System our small 6 person team built had a massive budget, enterprise-class application, and support from a large group of users that were enthusiastic and ready for a better way, what I would give to have that type of project again! It’s still to this day used by Millions of folks who fight fire, and I have a dear friend that stayed there and supports the application to this day, but for me, I could not commute and be in a cubicle any longer. Nope, I prefer poverty and open space.
After several years of Freelancing and even making a ski movie and bike movie with KGB Productions, I settled back down as the online marketing manager and developer for a growing ski resort I feel vital to our small town. The product design was horrendous, the platforms were outdated, and I felt that our town needed it to work well. During my years at Grand Targhee Resort, the company grew, we simplified application while adding features, created repeatable design standards all used today.
Today, I am creating a platform that I think will be effective for sharing everything I’ve learned through my website. I also work with some fantastic clients, helping to solve their business problems using design and transaction focused websites.