About

Born to an Irish and Spanish family minutes after midnight on The Michaelmas of 1980, I first grew in the broken area of Brooklyn, then raised in The South Bronx slums from 3rd Grade onward. I've been escaping poverty while forging something greater than myself ever since.

Witnessing street fights, attack dogs, gang gunshots, ambulance and police sirens both on the ground and just outside my window, I spent my developmental years either on my fire escape or inside reading entries within The Encyclopedia Brittanica as well as The Great Books of The Western World.

As my room's crumbling walls closed in, evicting inhabitants worthy of The Temple of Doom, I found solace within Marcus Aurelius, Homer, Carl Jung, Immanuel Kant, Blaise Pascal, and John Locke among others. Heroic journeys like The Odyssey and The Lord of The Rings offered an early explorative sense, while Odysseus and Aragorn provided heroes who lead with honor, perseverance, strength, connection, wisdom, empathy, kinship and character at the forefront. Large swords also help.

Further along this path was the discovery of Batman, an anti-hero who channeled his scars into a force to help those trapped within a corrupt cityscape. It gave him the drive towards self-discipline and skill development, hence an interest in practicing with various tools, as well as the martial arts, took root. Being he is also the world's greatest detective, developing insight into the psychology of others would prove another valuable skill worth training. One stark difference is Bruce Wayne was born into vast wealth, yet I know from experience that the mayonnaise at government food centers tasted exactly how the label's graphics looked.

What currency I could scrape up got funneled into comics, toys, games, and collectable cards like Garbage Pail Kids, Marvel Universe, and Magic: The Gathering. I saved, traded, and competed to accumulate a solid stash to fill my leisure time with over the years. Playing The NES, Sega Master System, Super Nintendo, and Sega Genesis then carved potent interests to practice interface design and interactive prototyping. Of course, the desire to master the tools necessary to make them also exploded. Meanwhile, if our dusty secondhand word processor could have any nascent AI spark within it, it'd manage to develop performance anxiety. Far more wonderful toys were required.

Knowing there was no way my family could afford to put more than two food stamps toward my tools or education, I worked to earn acceptance at Regis, an all-scholarship high school for gifted young men of focus. It was during this time I landed my first internship at Mada Design in 1996, followed by a junior designer summer gig at Razorfish in 1998, which thankfully paid for my first computer back when 16MB of RAM ought to be enough for anybody. I then returned to Mada Design as a full-time designer as I coasted into university.

Chaining combos in design programs with a fervor rivaled only by my Street Fighter 2 addiction, I might've skipped college entirely had I not gotten a free ride at Fordham University in Manhattan. Tuition was covered, yet living there wasn't part of the deal. Still, I had to get out of The Hood for a while, so I racked up painful debt in exchange for the shiny streets of Manhattan. Never forgetting where I came from, I continued practicing Chung Do Kwan while at university, attaining my First Dan in 2002, then Second Dan in 2005.

Initially I majored in Computer Science, yet realized quickly that back-end programming made my eyes melt. After six courses I declared it my minor, switched to Mathematics, and kept perfecting Design on the job at caffeinated speeds.

Doing all this in parallel must've fused my left and right brain hemispheres together like some new age yin-yang. Everything simply makes fluid sense, for I can see what you mean, Sensei Grasshopper. Now, front-end coding did catch my eye for a while; so what you are looking at is indeed hand-coded, leveraging the MDB Bootstrap Front-End Framework. Thus, I've reinvented zero wheels while grinding experience for better loot as I improve the lives of my party members through my expertise.

...and before this bio evolves into Shin Gojira's uncle, the rest of my journey is what this portfolio exists to show. Hence, check out my Work section for more involved UIUX case studies, my Play section for rapid indie eye candy, and better yet contact me so we can meet in the middle. Ask me anything you like, and in the slim chance you're wondering what I've been up to after working six straight years as Senior UIUX Designer for eGifter followed immediately by Estée Lauder, suffice it to say I've honorably done a son's duty to my parents, seeing them through their twilight years to the very end. Batman would've done the same.

After spending much needed family time with my brothers, I've recently moved to Las Vegas to find my next great endeavor, for I'm meta driven to join another epic team and design my best work yet.

I verily appreciate your reading this, and I hope it was enjoyable. Take wonderful care of yourself, your loved ones, your cat, and reach out with opportunities so we can create an even greater Godzilla together.