MULTIMEDIA PROFESSIONAL. ENTREPRENEUR. ADVENTURE BUDDY.

I’ve worn a lot of different hats over the course of my career, but no matter what I do, my approach is always the same: jump in with both feet.

From my days at Pillar2Post (P2P), creating new and better ways to evaluate digital programs, to the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Science360 News Service, where I created the NSF Science360 Super Science Show, I have always looked for ways to make a job or a business better by producing the best-quality work I can. At P2P, after my efforts led to an increase in successful digital deliveries from 60 to 98%, I was promoted to Director of Quality Control Operations, making me the youngest director at the company. At NSF, my outreach and creative thinking not only lead to a bump in subscribership to our newsletter, but also an improvement in communication with other content providers, ultimately leading to the Science360 Video portal to being named by Forbes’ as one of the best places to find science videos in 2017.

In 2016 after a short, but successful career as a multimedia professional, I made the decision to move with my now-wife overseas during her first tour for the State Department at the U.S. Embassy in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan. Due to the hiring freeze at the time, only one position was open to me at the embassy as a member-of-household: General Manager of the embassy commissary and recreation association.

Although I had no real business experience or background, I used the skills I’d learned managing small teams of editors and communications processes to unify the organization’s staff, board of directors, and other embassy community members behind the common goal of using the commissary to make the U.S. Mission in Kazakhstan a better place to serve. During my time there, I completely reorganized the financial system, created an ordering system that allowed individuals at the embassy to place personal orders when we received commissary shipments, and partnered with a local café to open a satellite location within the embassy so mission personnel had access to artisanal drinks and fresh pastries. When our tour ended in May of 2018, I’d turned a previously in-debt organization profitable and received an award from the ambassador recognizing my achievement in improving embassy morale.

When we moved on to our next post at the U.S. Embassy in Muscat, Oman, I dug back into my college reporting skillset to become a contracted Special Investigator, carrying out interviews and writing reports regarding suitability for employment within the U.S. Government. While there weren’t very many metrics to track how well I was doing, I was able to eliminate the embassy’s backlog of cases and out of the forty or so reports I submitted within my first month, I only had a handful returned to me for minor edits. While I was handling this workload, I accepted a short-term contract with the embassy’s commissary and recreation association, fixing and standardizing contracts, hiring and training a new general manager, and coaching middle management in leadership to help fill the gap between managers.

Whether it was starting at Pillar2Post as an archive technician and becoming the Director of Quality Control Operations six months later, or improving embassy commissaries all over the world, I’ve always made sure I leave every day proud of the work I’ve done. 

I received my B.A. in Broadcast Journalism from American University in the Spring of 2013, and made the School of Communication Dean’s List in the Fall of 2011. During my time in college, I interned at the Institute for Education where I became the Director of Social Media- the second youngest director in the non-profit and founder of the position. 

Outside of my professional pursuits, I’ve become an American Council on Exercise certified personal trainer and was once a head coach for a small collegiate rowing team.