What is your current position within the VPFA portfolio?
I work on the Business Affairs Information Systems team. This year will mark 10 years working as an Analyst/Programmer at the UO. I divide my time between developing and supporting the UO Forms site, the E-commerce hosting and reporting infrastructure, and a handful of other staff-facing sites and web applications.

What has been your career path; how did you end up in your current position?
I love understanding systems and working with people from differing backgrounds. This passion to explore has kept me learning within my career. Despite twice taking 2½ years off work—mainly spent exploring the US and Western Europe—I have been able to fit in a lot of quirky jobs. 

I started working early (at age 9), picking strawberries for a local farm in southern Ohio followed by babysitting and other farm work. I then took turns exploring different interests by getting jobs where I would be paid to do the things I wanted to learn.

• Getting to know kids and helping them grow: I worked as a summer camp counselor for three summers, was an art director for a child care center, and taught kids at a Celtic music camp.
• Building physical things: 
  • On the low end of the building spectrum, I have dug ditches, done roofing, and framed houses, all pretty hard on a body.
  • On the higher end of the spectrum, I spent a couple of years as a furniture maker, and then worked a stretch as a potter. I have a piece of 18th-century-style “redware” pottery in the Smithsonian folklife collection. 
    
• Food and the people who eat food: I worked a lot of restaurant jobs as dishwasher, waiter, barista, baker, line cook, and lead cook. I also spent five years at a vegetarian whole-food restaurant while studying physics in Cincinnati. My journey also included various breakfast dives, four pizzerias, three coffee houses, and various bakeries, including a year as a croissant baker at the French Horn here in Eugene.
• Music and entertainment: I was able to work a season as a Renaissance festival puppeteer (large puppets). I hosted an Irish session for many years and was lead vocalist/bodhran player/guitarist with friends in an Irish band; we spent a few years playing festivals, bars, and weddings. 
• Software development:  Before coming to the University of Oregon in 2011, I made computer games for Sierra-Dynamix, ski-related software for Booth Creek, and educational software for Thompson Learning (now called Cengage). I also spent about seven years as partner-owner of a small software development group specializing in library websites.

What do you like about your current position?
I am able to help people across campus use technology to make their work easier. I enjoy gaining insight into the underlying systems that keep the university running.

What advice do you have for others? What secrets would you share for someone thinking of applying to the UO?
Working in technology with universities is different than working for the corporate world. There is a slower, almost consensus-driven approach to change, which took some adjusting to when I first started at the UO. Taking the time to learn about the people that will be using the systems you build is key, as is knowing the history that shapes the current landscape. The community of developers at the university is an invaluable asset and a rewarding place to give back.

On the personal front
My most important job is being Dad to my three sons. I enjoy gardening, cooking, and reading. I play music with my family; dance parties with my two-year-old have been a recent highlight! I have also practiced tai chi with my dear friend and bandmate, Linda, for around 20 years.

(March 2021)