I love to build things. From wedding dresses to websites, I’ve created a lot of things I’m proud of over the years. To me, design is about solutions to problems; whether the constraints are aesthetic, monetary, browser-based or temporal, good designers provide solutions to real-world problems. My perspective has broadened over time, based on a number of different career paths. Management, education, product development, print design, custom clothing, and freelance web development are all facets of my experience.
Computer programming has been an interest of mine since the early 1980’s. I was lucky enough to have learned LOGO on an Apple 2c at a Montessori school. In junior high I could often be found downloading programs from BBS to a cassette tape drive attached to my Commodore 64. My love for technology continued until an interest in all things theatrical developed during high school. I ended up in Chicago at a conservatory program for costume design. My Chicago years were creatively inspiring, and financially barren after I was thrown out of school because my financial aid application was denied midway through my sophomore year. I returned to Dallas, intent on getting a college degree, and graduated from the University of North Texas in 2001 with a B.F.A. in Fashion Design.
Early in 2005 I purchased a 17″ PowerBook, and became an OS X convert immediately. Over the course of the next several years I reacquainted myself with technology. Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign became tools that added value for my employers. During this time I worked as a senior manager at a popular restaurant in Dallas, and in 2005 forayed into web development. Since then I have pushed the boundaries of my job descriptions to include technology whenever possible.
I’ve always had more than one job, and in 2009 I started teaching part time at the college level. 2010 saw my first client website and introduced me to javascript. Since then my interest in web development has gradually progressed from a hobby, to a passion. In addition to my other jobs and the development of my teaching career, I’ve been regularly studying the state of the web and developing technologies. In 2012 I joined Code School, and as far as I know, I’m the only student to complete all of their courses. In 2014 I developed a site in WordPress and it was my platform of choice for the next last three years.
In 2017 I joined Children’s Health System of Texas as a consulting front end developer. After 4 months they created a full time front end developer role for me. Since that time I have updated all of the templates necessary for a full site redesign and delivered HTML, CSS3 and JS code for all our web properties – 6000+ pages worth. Improvements to analytics via a full rebuild of GTM, Brightcove video support, WCAG 2.0 improvements, migration of front end experiences from Google Search Appliance to Apache Solr / Fusion, and a custom integration of the OneLink platform for Spanish translations are some of the web projects I’ve personally delivered.
In 2018 I began a custom Angular app for data management, and have served as a developer and front end lead on that project taking it from Angular 6 to Angular 10.
2020 brought a management opportunity, and as Manager of Technology and Development for the Marketing Department, I’ve already begun to shape the direction my team’s future.