Chapter 01
Listening.
Music, teaching, and understanding people
Roughly 2004 – 2022 · still going
Before I was writing software, I was teaching music and working with people.
I studied jazz at UNC Asheville. Jazz is a long education in listening: you pay attention to what's actually happening in the room, recognize the pattern, and respond in real time. You don't get to stop the band while you figure it out.
Teaching private guitar, ukulele and piano lessons taught me to explain one idea five different ways until it landed. Every student learns differently, so the lesson plan was only ever a starting point.
Then came a decade with young people and their families, first as a field instructor in the north Georgia mountains and later mentoring teenagers as they came home from wilderness programs. That taught me patience. Progress doesn't go in a straight line, and you have to understand the person in front of you before you try to change anything.
Most of what I do now still starts with listening.
2004–2012University of North Carolina AshevilleBachelor's degree · Jazz Studies+
2012 – 2017+Private music instructionIndependent teaching practice · guitar, ukulele, piano+
2012–2016Second Nature Blue RidgeField Instructor · Clayton, Georgia+
2015Piedmont Wildlife CenterCounselor · summer camp · Durham, NC+
2015 – ~2022Second Nature 360Mentor · Raleigh–Durham–Chapel Hill+
2015–2018Tech Tutorials with LoveTeacher / tutor · everyday technology+
Chapter 02
Judgment.
Refereeing, technical problem-solving, and responsibility
2010 – 2017
Some problems don't wait for perfect information.
I started refereeing soccer while I was at UNC Asheville and kept at it for seven years, working up to college matches through the Triangle Intercollegiate Soccer Officials Association. On the field you prepare, observe, make the call, communicate it, and keep the game moving. Then someone assesses the tape and tells you what you missed.
Around the same time I was repairing computers in Pink Hill and tutoring people through the technology in their lives. The fix wasn't always elegant. A lot of the time the job was finding something that worked, explaining it, and making sure the person could actually use it.
Make the call, then tell people why.
2010–2017Triangle Intercollegiate Soccer Officials AssociationCollegiate soccer referee · men's and women's matches+
2014R&A SystemsComputer repair technician · Pink Hill, NC+
2015Living Well Health Food StoreFreelance technology consultant · Kinston, NC+
Kinston, North Carolina · 2015
The work was always about systems.
Years before anyone talked about AI agents, I was helping a local health food store replace a manual process with a better one.
We picked the software, organized thousands of inventory items, and trained the team to run it. Different technology. Same basic question:
How do we make this easier for the people doing the work?
Technology selection · data migration · team coordination · training · implementation. It's the same shape of work Struxure does today, with different tools.
Chapter 03
Building.
Software engineering and product development
2016 – 2021
Learning to code meant I could build things myself.
In 2016 I went through a six-month immersive full-stack JavaScript program, then a full-time development internship at Caktus Group in Durham, then a developer role at Kame Labs. I could finally move from talking about an idea to actually building it.
In 2017 I co-founded Flow GLOBE, a web and mobile app design and development consultancy. We ran UX design sprints, worked with businesses to define what they were really after, made mockups, and coordinated a distributed development team overseas to build the thing.
That's where I learned that good software starts before anyone writes code, with working out what needs to happen and who it's for.
Thinkful
Six-month immersive, full-stack JavaScript.
Caktus Group
Full-time software development internship / web developer, Durham, NC.
Kame Labs
Web developer, Spokane–Coeur d'Alene area.
Flow GLOBE — co-founder
Web and mobile application design and development consultancy. UX/UI, product-development consulting, full-stack JavaScript and mobile builds, and management of a distributed development team in India.
Geekdom & The District
Moved to San Antonio in 2018 and worked with early-stage teams inside Geekdom, including The District with Nick Longo. UX design for The Machine Manufacturing Company came out of this stretch; the company was later acquired. The client work from these years is in the archive below: ONSI Group, Military Influencer and C-MACC.
Chapter 04
Growing.
Business consulting, media, and organizational systems
2019 – 2025
Over time the work got bigger than websites and apps.
I started Struxure Consulting in January 2019. The early years were business analysis, custom software, UX, websites, e-commerce, WordPress, marketing systems, whatever a small organization needed next.
Then three years with SunCast Media, running the production team for audio, video and live clean-energy events, and working on growth, partnerships and the operations behind all of it. I got more interested in how a whole organization runs: how people talk to each other, how customers get looked after, and where the information lives.
The technology still mattered, but it was only part of it.
Struxure Consulting, LLC
Business analysis, custom software, UX/UI, websites, product development, marketing systems and operations. Later it grew into media production, organizational consulting and AI implementation.
SunCast Media
Ran the production team for three years (audio, video, live events), along with business development, growth strategy, partnerships and marketing operations for the clean-energy podcast and media company.
GAIT IQ
Product design and MVP development: Figma user stories, FigJam MVP planning, administrative-interface design and prototype reviews.
The same stretch includes nonprofit and organizational consulting (World Bridge Foundation / Chino Bay), UX and conversion work (Leggetti / College Funding Secrets), and a long tail of websites and systems for small organizations. The selected work section below has the details.
Chapter 05
Connecting.
AI, education, and practical systems
2025 – present
AI is a very good tool, but I don't think everything should be automated.
I start with what people are trying to get done. Sometimes that means taking repetitive work off their plate, sometimes it's organizing information so they can find it, and sometimes it's a small system that frees up time for the work they care about.
It's the same job I was doing in that health food store in 2015, with better tools and a lot more practice.
- Practical AI implementation
- Workflow automation
- AI education for staff and founders
- Agent development
- Business process improvement
- Knowledge management
- Client onboarding systems
- B2B growth systems
Roots