About

Growing up, I was always driven to create – today, I hope to use that creativity to help the world

Drawing, making comic books, and building my own creations with legos were among my earliest creative pursuits. As I got older, I developed a passion for music that continues to this day and can be seen in two of my web development projects.

It was my sophmore year of high school when I got my first taste of HTML. I would spend hours outside of class coding a GeoCities website. I played with and built pages as I did when I was a kid playing with legos. It was truthfully a confusing mess of a site, but it helped me learn the basics of HTML.

While following my passion for music in undergrad, I discovered an interest in communications. It started by simply hosting a college radio show, which I know no one outside my family listened to (thanks Mom and Dad!). Hanging around the Communications Department and overhearing students there piqued my interest. At that point, I attempted to minor in Communications. Unfortunately, I failed in this endeavor because I was unable to fit in one final elective course before graduating. This did spur me on to pursuing a Master’s in Communication and the unique insight into human behavior that comes with it.

During my graduate studies, I had the opportunity to intern with Volunteers of America and it would become an eye-opening experience. I had always known that addiction, poverty, homelessness, and mental health were serious issues, issues with which our country has struggled and failed to adequately address. It’s one thing to know it, it’s another to see it, to look into the faces of those in the throes of one or more of these problems and hear their stories. In my short time there, I knew that I would need to be involved in helping others, that I wouldn’t be satisfied going to work and just picking up a pay check. I needed more than that.

It was this path (and my then girlfriend, now fiancé), that led me to work for the Brain Injury Association of Michigan. It was another eye-opening experience. Again, I saw people in need and struggling thanks to yet another issue our country has failed to adequately address, this time it was health care and disability. I not only saw the bugs in our system, but I saw how it interconnected with the previously addressed issues of addiction, poverty, homelessness, and mental health. While my time there was not long enough, I’m every grateful for the few years I did work there and for the opportunity to work with the wonderful BIAMI staff. Were it not for budget cuts, I would probably still be there today.

Finding myself out of work, I decided it would behoove me to be productive and pick up where I left off in learning web development. Prior to working for BIAMI, I had learned the HTML5 and CSS3. During my tenure at BIAMI, my interest in web development was rekindled and with my newfound free time, it only made sense to learn more. After moving back to Louisville, the first thing I did was to sign up for Code Louisville.

Today, I’m proud to say I’ve passed Code Louisville’s Front-End Web Development course. Currently, I’ve added JavaScript, jQuery, Bootstrap, and Git to my repertoire, with an eye to expand my knowledge further into WordPress specific tools and possibly PHP. As I continue to learn not only new skills, but also about myself and this world’s problems, it is my sincere hope that I can not only take what I’ve learned and make a living doing it, but to ensure that the world is a better place, where no one is left behind.

If you’d like to follow me on Twitter, you can find me at @Oh_No_Its_Nate. You can also find me on Instagram at @Oh_No.Its_Nate. Lastly, if interested, you can view my LinkedIn profile.