Builder.
Creator.
Problem Solver.
The Build: From Tape Rewinders to Digital Infrastructure
I’ve always been the kind of person who has to know how things work. Not just on the surface, but all the way down to the root. Whether it’s a high-performance engine, a guitar signal chain, or a complex software system, I want to understand it, secure it, and make it serve something bigger than itself. Whatever the season, I’ve always gone all in.
My story is Texas-built: equal parts grit, creativity, and a relentless drive to master whatever’s in front of me.
The Invention Era: 1980s
My foundation was poured on Texas job sites alongside my Dad, a custom home builder who did it all. Hard work wasn’t a lesson. It was just Tuesday. But when I wasn’t on the job site with Dad or out riding my bike, I was in full inventor mode always looking for something to tear apart or build.
My first project idea as a kid came from hating the wait. Rewinding a VHS tape on a home VCR took forever, and rental shops charged you if you didn’t rewind before returning. So I built a tape rewinder out of a cassette tape carrying case, an AC transformer, a DC power supply, a RC car motor and a handful of other parts. It plugged into a 110-volt wall outlet and rewound a tape in seconds. I was a kid running house current through real power conversion, and it worked. That was my first lesson in systems thinking: find the bottleneck, engineer the fix, make it fast.
On the gaming side, the NES and Super Mario Bros. were a constant. When the Game Boy dropped in 1989, that little gray brick was basically glued to my hand from that point on.
Mechanical Grit and Early Data: 1990s
The Game Boy carried right into the ’90s, but the platforms were expanding. Oregon Trail on a friend’s Macintosh, puzzle games on the family Windows PC. Computers were becoming less of a mystery and more of a playground. The internet arrived, and with it came chat rooms and a whole new kind of connection.
I built my first truck at 12, sold it, and went on to restore several classic Chevys before I even had my license at 16. That mechanical curiosity expanded quickly. At 16, I was drag racing my custom builds on the weekends at the local drag strip and started building competition-level car audio systems for people around the area, which sparked a lifelong obsession with sound. On the side, I was playing drums in a band and soaking up everything I could about music and performance.
During this time, I worked at an abstract title company, scanning county documents like old black topo maps and county records into digital archives and indexing databases on DOS and early Windows systems. It was my first real taste of translating physical records into structured digital systems. After high school I headed to college at Texas State Technical College, Waco. I continued to work part time doing data entry along with working at local auto repair shops when needed, all while taking classes for Windows office environments, the internet, electrical AC/DC theory, and circuit board design. I studied a year in computer-controlled systems and robotics before switching into automotive, but that year of electrical and electronics coursework stuck with me. It’s the same foundation I still draw on when I’m wiring circuits or designing embedded systems today. Precise record work by day, wrenches by night. That combination set the template for everything that followed.
Creative Shift and the Early Web: 2000s
After graduating TSTC with an associates degree, I managed Walmart stores for a season. I worked hard enough to earn the nickname “the Michael Jordan of the district,” but quickly realized the long hours didn’t match the pay. Seasons changed, and in 2003 I married the love of my life, Erin, which is easily the best decision I’ve ever made.
I went back to my roots and partnered up with my Dad doing: custom metal buildings, dirt work, concrete, welding, and electrical. During that same season, I built my first home studio, which was a turning point. It taught me room acoustics and audio engineering skills I’ve relied on ever since.
The 2000s were a season of going all in on multiple fronts at once. On the water, the fishing trips I’d taken with my dad since childhood had evolved into competitive catfish tournaments, going head-to-head with serious competitors across Texas and Oklahoma. On the tech side, I was building out multiple Windows rigs for the studio, tinkering with old ThinkPads running Linux, and riding the MP3 revolution, chasing every new development in digital audio.
In 2005, I launched my first website, a Flash-built site with Flash games and a web chat forum just to see if I could build something people would actually use. Turns out that instinct never left me.
Professional Precision and Worship Leadership: 2006–2019
In 2006, I was able to get licensed as a Texas all-lines property and casualty adjuster along with getting State Farm certified in claim estimatics and policy review. Over the years I accumulated continuing education hours and maintained certifications that opened the door for contract work with some of the biggest names in the industry. I climbed to the top of the call list and stayed out on catastrophe deployments most of those years. The job demanded a rare combination of field expertise, technical documentation, and professional accountability. Those skills have quietly shaped every software and systems project I’ve touched since.
In 2008, I bought my first MacBook Pro. As a creative and recording musician, it was a revelation. The workflow, the tools, the stability. It completely changed how I approached audio engineering and production.
By 2012, I was building Mac Minis for the studio and worship environments, which proved to be a total game changer for my creative workflow. That setup became the backbone of my audio and video production for years. I’ve been a Mac user ever since and still run a MacBook Air for development and remote management today. That said, I still use Windows and Linux regularly because every OS has its place, and I’ve never been the kind of person who picks just one tribe.
Though I’ve played drums since age 12 and picked up guitar around 16, I stepped into full-time worship leadership in 2014 while still actively adjusting insurance property claims. To solve real gaps in live performance, in 2015 I designed a custom MIDI-protocol stomp pedal that integrated with iOS to control backing-track apps. The first time I got the brain wired and coded to trigger my iPhone 4S, I was absolutely excited as I knew this would be the start of a new shift in live looping and playback rigs. I turned that experience into a YouTube series walking worship leaders through how to build and run worship loops on iOS. I was able to use that MIDI stomp controler weekly for over seven years before switching to a wireless option. It now serves as a backup controller when needed.
Also in 2015, I started building websites for local businesses, and by 2020 that work had expanded into full e-commerce builds. In 2019, after 13 years in the field, I stepped back from insurance adjusting to launch Waco Hemp Farm, trading claims files for crop compliance and bringing that same attention to detail into agriculture.
Infrastructure, Compliance, and Deep Tech: 2021–Present
In 2021 and 2022, I served as an Official State Hemp Sampler for the Texas Department of Agriculture, a role grounded in regulatory precision, chain of custody, and high-level professional trust.
In 2022, I took on the full technical infrastructure for our worship environment at church, engineered digital audio systems built around Dante networks, built out linux servers for waves soundgrid networks, deployed network syncing power conditioners and learned the design, installation, maintenance and repair of LED video walls and theatrical stage lighting for live broadcasting environments.
In 2024 I earned a Music Production certification from Berklee College of Music, adding formal credentials to more than 25 years of hands-on studio experience.
In January of 2025 I went under the hood of the internet itself. I began architecting self-hosted infrastructure: virtualized environments, distributed storage, secure networking, and GPU-accelerated AI workloads. I build systems around these technologies because I want to own the stack, not just deploy on top of it. That led me directly into cybersecurity and ethical hacking, which I’m now studying formally at TSTC Waco with a graduation date of May 2026. The program goes well beyond textbook theory. I’ve built and torn down full lab environments covering Cisco routing and switching, VMware and Proxmox virtualization, Windows Server and Active Directory, firewall configuration, penetration testing, and network defense.
In 2025 I represented TSTC at the SkillsUSA competition in Internet of Things Smart Home and placed 2nd. I competed again in April 2026 and won 1st place and brought home the Gold metal. I fly to Atlanta to compete at a National level June 2026.
Currently in 2026, I’m deep in active software development across several fronts: a local school’s class registration and management system, insurance claim-handling software with LiDAR integration, policy and SOP development for AI-managed infrastructures, and AI guardrail engineering for automated systems. I’m also building a completely new site for the Guitar Tone Gurus community, which has grown into a platform with thousands of members and downloads worldwide. On top of all that, there’s a custom ESP32 firmware project involving a touchscreen age-gate system for a retrofitted vending machine. Standard Tuesday.
What Drives It All
Faith, purpose, and community aren’t just values I list. They’re the operating system underneath everything I do. The worship stage, the home lab, the guitar preset marketplace, the farm, the classroom. They’re all expressions of the same thing: a desire to build tools that serve people well and to do it with integrity.
Core Competencies
Digital Infrastructure · Virtualized environments, distributed storage, secure networking, GPU-accelerated AI
Cybersecurity · Ethical hacking, network defense, Linux security (TSTC, graduate of May 2026)
Software & Web Development · Custom platforms, e-commerce, registration systems, AI and LiDAR integrations, mapping, plotting and tracing systems, estimate generators, and document preparation automations; building since 2005
Insurance & Claims · 13 years as an independent adjuster; deep domain expertise in field documentation and technical assessment
Creative Engineering · Line 6 Helix preset design and accessory hardware, MIDI hardware, home studio production, worship tech; Berklee Music Production certified
Regulatory Compliance · Texas Dept. of Agriculture and Dept. of State Health Services; regulated operational farm management and product manufacturing.