In high school I was a bum. I thought nothing of college, I took as many off periods as I could, and I never studied. I did just what I needed to get by.

After marrying my lovely wife, I realized that I needed to get serious about my life and about my job. When we got married I was working as a manager at Inflatable Wonderland, a bounce-house place for kids. Looking back, I don’t know how I managed to woo such a classy woman while working at such an embarrassingly lame job. I wasn’t going anywhere.

So I got serious about school and serious about design. Early on in my college career, I had a poster design class and my first type class. Through these two classes and my professors, I discovered that I loved design. I gave myself to my work and I was good at it. My poster designs won awards and I went on to work with those same professors repeatedly over the following years.

Once the switch was flipped I was insatiable. My curiosity grew and grew and I soaked up everything I could, both in school and out. I took on random freelance gigs for friends, I started learning HTML and CSS, and I eventually took a part-time job as a designer – all while still in school.

I’m extremely grateful for that time because it awakened a curiosity in me that has become part of how I operate. There hasn’t been a time since then where I was not pursuing something new.