I remember being excited - yet, not quite knowing why - when my parents announced they were buying a family video camera. I was 10 years old, and they brought home a "state-of-the-art" Sony, 8mm Handycam. I spent the next three days making a stop-motion animation movie with Legos and Play Doh ... and then the next 8 years making movies with friends using Nerf guns and Windows Movie Maker. I suppose this was where my passion for video production was first born.
I grew up in snowy North Canton, Ohio, which is about an hour south of Cleveland. An area that taught me to love sports as well as pierogis. It also taught me to respect the blue-collar livelihoods that used to be the backbone of America. However, I left home after graduating high school to attend Appalachian State University in the beautiful mountains of Boone, N.C. where I received undergraduate degrees in journalism and electronic media/broadcasting.
Currently, I'm living in Winston-Salem, N.C., where I attend documentary film graduate school at Wake Forest University. The period between undergrad and graduate school was spent in the exciting world of digital media. Most recently, I worked for The Roanoke (Va.) Times as a multimedia producer where I shot and edited videos, designed web and interactive graphics and reported on local news. Before Roanoke, I spent short stints working at The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Outside of my passion for multimedia production, my second love is sports. Whether it be cheering for all things Cleveland or training for a half-marathon, sports have always been a big part of my life. I also love music and playing guitar and, when the weather is right, snowboarding in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I recently returned from a two-month roadtrip around the United States and am experiencing cabin fever from being in one place too long.
