My Story

I am a Christian developer learning how to build useful software and bring every part of my life under Christ's rule. That commitment shapes my convictions about work, government, church, family, education, health, and more.

Where I am now

I am 20 and work as a web developer at Abilene Christian University. Outside work, I build software with my dad through Tracker. I also read and write to sharpen my thinking and understand the ideas shaping how I live and work.

How I got here

My dad taught me to play chess when I was about six. He promised me fifty dollars if I could beat him, so I practiced against Microsoft Chess Titans. It once took me eighty-five games to beat a single level. On February 25, 2013, I finally beat my dad. Chess taught me that hard problems could become learnable through patience and consistent effort.

A couple of years later, my dad told me that coding was a way to tell a computer what to do. The idea that a computer would listen to an eight-year-old immediately caught my attention. I started learning JavaScript on Khan Academy, then learned HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, jQuery, and JavaScript through Treehouse.

When I was nine, I built a simple 2D collision detection game called Avoid. At twelve, I published my first blog post about why I liked coding. Making things, watching them work, and sharing what I learned have been connected for me from the beginning.

My interest in business also came through my dad. I do not consider myself an entrepreneur, but he is one, and I want to become more like him. His encouragement eventually led us to build Tracker together. Tracker began as a platform for local news and information communities. We built a website and mobile app for Roseburg Tracker, whose Facebook group has 40,000 members. Since then, we have turned Tracker into a software company that builds products for other companies.

What I am building now

At ACU, I work as a web developer. Through Tracker, my dad and I build software for other companies. Both give me opportunities to improve my technical judgment, understand real users, and learn what makes software useful.