A designer. A builder. Always curious.

My first business started in a workshop.

In high school, I started designing and building windsurfing boards and A-Class catamarans (opens in a new tab). I worked with carbon fiber, Kevlar, and wood/epoxy construction to make high-performance sailing craft.

Long before product design, I was already working through the connection between an idea, its materials, and how it performs in the real world.

OWNER · DESIGNER · BUILDER / THREE RIVERS, MICHIGAN

Making technology something we could create with.

I designed and coded my first website in Dreamweaver—a school library site that grew to 227 pages. All manually built. No CMS.

Alongside teachers and students, I created The Eagle News, using green-screen effects and virtual sets to turn school news into something we made together.

Recognized at the 2003 MACUL conference.

After Whitmore Lake, I started KJ Films, shooting corporate and wedding videos—another way to bring stories to life.

Learning to build what I designed.

At ClearRiver, I became confident in front-end development. Learning ExpressionEngine was a turning point: I could deliver powerful, content-managed websites—not just design how they should look.

The work stretched across websites, web applications, mobile, animation, and video. I was learning how design decisions hold up when you build them.

INTERACTIVE DESIGNER / MIDLAND, MICHIGAN

Bringing someone’s idea into the world.

I started my own design company, helping clients connect their ideas with an audience. For the Thrive Doctors, that meant e-books, marketing, and websites supporting their inventions and conferences.

For an interior designer, I helped publish a book and created a website and video. Design, front-end development, and filmmaking became parts of the same project—not separate handoffs.

INDEPENDENT DESIGN BUSINESS / RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA

From building websites to understanding the experience.

At Atlantic BT, the problems became more complex: a mobile app for Schwinn, and workflows helping dermatologists work toward board certification.

I began doing user research and running workshops with clients and teams. The work shifted toward understanding what people needed, untangling workflows, and figuring out the right thing to build.

LEAD UX STRATEGIST & TEAM LEAD / RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA

Learning to lead—and design beyond a single screen.

At Allscripts, I worked through the complexity of electronic health records: charting, clinical workflows, and the needs of doctors and nurses. Ross Teague, a PhD researcher, deepened my research practice and helped shape how I approached my first management roles.

Allscripts also began my design-system journey. At Oracle, that continued with contributing to Redwood, connecting individual product decisions to a shared design language.

FROM SENIOR DESIGNER TO DESIGN MANAGER

Creating the conditions for great design.

At Citrix, I found a culture that valued UX and colleagues who pushed my craft. I shaped a product vision, helped build a new design system, and grew into leading teams across Bangalore and Prague. Mentoring designers and building relationships became as important as designing the work.

I also reshaped design operations toward a more UX-friendly approach to SAFe, while partnering closely with Marketing, Brand, Ramotion, and Athletics to connect product experiences with illustration, iconography, and identity.

At Pendo, that leadership extended into new territory: overseeing launches including Session Replay, Journeys, and Pendo Adopt, while helping explore how emerging AI could fit into the product.

Connecting vision to how we build.

At Paylocity, I led my largest organization yet, spanning Mobile, Notifications, Home, AI, Video, Reporting, and Community, alongside Design Systems and Content Strategy. I helped establish a shared product vision, advance a new design language, overhaul content guidelines, and get new AI capabilities off the ground.

At Cobalt, I brought that experience into a smaller, hands-on setting: rebuilding the UX team, establishing research and design operations, and shaping a new product vision. Working closely with Engineering, I explored AI-assisted workflows that connected design to working code—building reusable components and contributing reviewed, merged UI changes myself.

The thread is still making. Now it includes shaping how a team makes things together.