"A brief history of mine..."

Born October 26th, 1969 in Buffalo, NY. However, I grew up in Rochester, NY. I have one sister, and two brothers. I have three mothers.

As a youth, I was very active and into the more obscure sports like Lacrosse, Archery and Disc-Golf. I even used to be a professional paint-ball player for the PMI Piranha team.

Originally, I planned on being an architect. Ironically, I despised computers at the time. My parents bought me a Commodore 64 for Christmas one year, and that changed everything. In my late teens (otherwise known as the 80's), I (like most boys) became interested in music thanks to my oldest brother. Since I had no real talent as far as actually playing an instrument, I purchased some electronic instruments and began sequencing music via computer. I graduated from MCC with an Associates Degree in Computer Science and I also went to FLCC for Audio and Sound Engineering. I dropped out of that college after a year because my studio and gear was far superior to what the school had to offer. I also owned TheMatrix.com (which I sold to Warner Brothers in 2002) and a digital recording studio of the same name. I've done several video game soundtracks, and have won four "Mind / Body" CD compilation contests under various band names.

My first real job was for Forte' Technologies, a Virtual Reality company, as tech support and webmaster for their virtual reality products. The world wide web was just growing out of its infancy with only a few hundred commercial web sites online. This is where I was first exposed to real-world programming and databases. There was one single book on HTML programming. Oh how far we've come. Since VR was really ahead of it's time, the company folded and before I knew it, I was handed a job in San Francisco...

In 1996, I was scooped up by "PC Gamer" magazine after a single phone interview with the Editor In Chief, who promptly sent a team of movers, a plane ticket and two weeks later I was gone. Almost immediately I migrated to join the team of the newly created "boot" magazine which became "MaximumPC". In the two years I was there, it was a tremendous learning experience. Not only was I honing my web chops, but I was growing as a person. Living on the opposite side of the country, alone. It really makes one self-sufficient and instills pride in ones self.

After two years of mastering my web skills, the infamous Alex St. John (father of Direct-X) invited me to become employee #2 of WildTangent, Inc. I flew up to Seattle, WA in 1998 and we began anew (while I lived in his basement for two months). I was eating, sleeping and drinking Chromeffects and coding till my fingers were sore. I learned several more languages and things that I never dreamed I'd be doing -- I was doing. I was creating video games, writing APIs, intranet infrastructures, interviewing and hiring new employees and becoming a man.

Tragically we all know what happened in September, 2001. Shortly after that event, I took a voluntary lay-off -- who knew that "9/11" would last for several years?! During that time I traveled to the U.K., New Orleans, Los Angeles, back to New York, Las Vegas, and various other random locations. It was my time to see the world as it were, if only briefly.

When the dust settled, I met Chad Storey who was starting a Vulnerability Assessment company named Interact Networks, Inc. He asked me to join as employee #4. After a very long year of 16+ hour days and no pay, we finally got funding. We changed names to Lockdown Networks, Inc. and I've been there ever since. For six years I was the GUI team lead, manager, architect and for all intents and purposes, the "oldest" employee there -- not age, but longevity. Sadly, Lockdown closed it's doors on 03/18/2008 as we finally ran out of funding and our burn rate was higher than our income.

Read my resume' if you're interested in more details about my careers and mad skills.

In 2006, Evan Phoenix and I started our own "side" company called Symcell Corporation. This new endeavor is quite exciting and once again a complete change in direction for me. Evan has since left to persue an ambitious challenge of re-writing Ruby as rubinius, and I've joined up with an amazing CFO named David Tushin who has helped the likes of Google and Virgin America raise massive funding.

I purchased my first condo in 2003, so I guess that means I'm staying here for a little bit. I also purchased my very first new car in 2007. I have some of the best friends I've ever had in my life here, and the thought of leaving them (or them leaving) is unconscionable. I spend my weekends socially (read: at a club) and am very much into the dance music scene. Yeah, I'm a bit of a socialite I guess, but it keeps me young. Age is just a state of mind.