I grew up in an adventurous, entrepreneurial family, and much of my childhood was spent traveling, around the family business, or doing various action sports. I met my wife Alyson in high school at a youth group, we got married this past December! Me and my family remain extremely close and they are a huge part of who I am and the values and attitudes that make me a valuable asset.
I studied Political Science at the University of Alberta, earning my Bachelor of Arts degree after finishing my coursework in August. I took a wide variety of courses while attending the university, but the through line was my love for learning about new areas and my love for writing. I especially excelled in 400 and 500 level seminar classes, honing my ability to intake and output complex ideas in a way that makes sense.
Outside of school and work, I've always been a musician, which has led to several opportunities professionally. I love singing and playing for any setting, and the skills I've learned organizing sets, events, and negotiating to make sure everyone gets what they want have proved invaluable.
I've always been attracted to fast paced action sports: as a kid I raced BMX bikes at a highly competitive level for over a decade, and these days I ride mountain bikes, surf, rock climb and occasionally guide off road motorcycle trips in the desert. These sports have taught me to keep calm under pressure, make decisions fast and maintain a level head in crisis.
I worked for 4 years (4 months each summer) at a urban summer camp specializing in family camp experiences. I worked in a huge variety of roles over the years, helping coordinate the waterfront program and coaching kids and adults, planning and executing full-scale gala dinners and fundraising events and working long hours with teams to execute ideas. These formative summers taught be how to be efficient and do a lot with a little.
While taking on a full time course load at the U of A, running my own guitar lesson business and volunteering I found the time to work for JIREH Industries, a global leader in NDT scanning robotics. While there, my primary job was writing user manuals for robotic inspection equipment, using CAD software and basic Adobe suite to write extensive manuals detailing the use, maintenance and features of complicated robots. I worked with the engineering team and the marketing department to ensure that the end product met JIREH's extensive quality standards and demonstrated the full capabilities of the products.
