Education
University of Missouri Columbia - Columbia, MO
Bachelor of Educational Studies, December 1998
My Educational Journey
My educational career at the University of Missouri Columbia was an interesting journey. Not for the typical social reasons, but more my educational path. Initially my intent in school was to study business, get a degree, and get out. But that isn't how it played out.
Entering college I had received significant scholarship money to continue my musical endeavors in trumpet performance (I began those early on). Because the School of Music was sponsoring my education, I was required to take about six to seven additional credit hours each semester studying music. This caused me a considerable amount of grief. Because music was such a time sucker, after I coupled that with my studies, my life was completely consumed by school. Maybe this was good, but in the end, the money I earned for playing my trumpet probably prevented me from learning more about the new industry that was just emerging. The internet. So instead, my focus was on graduating and not on finding the educational path that best fit my passions.
Fortunately for me, after graduating, I discovered the internet and began teaching myself everything I wish I would have learned in school. My personal educational journey paid off when I was selected to work on a research and development team for one of the world's largest insurance companies. Working in that position with a small team of brilliant individuals I learned what I was most passionate about doing every day and how I wanted to focus my professional career I wanted to lead teams in creating best of breed web applications to solve problems.
This path has lead me to where I am today. Currently I hold the position as the Director of Product Development for an education technology company. It is in this position that I have been given the responsibility to effect change in education through designing and developing software solutions that can aid in changing the infrastructure of today's broken educational system.
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