Long Story Short …

I am a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi. I am a web developer for Mad Genius, Inc. I know HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript, jQuery and a little C++.

Short Story Long …

I am a 2001 graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi. I finished with a degree in Advertising with double minors in Spanish and Psychology. I would probably still be there today if I hadn’t met my future wife Rebecca.

Like most I didn’t get a job in my degree field. Shocker I know, but that’s how it went. Sometime before I graduated I began work as a graphic artist for a local newspaper publisher, which published three separate papers, The Advertiser News, The Lamar News and The Petal News.

As the legend goes a friend of mine Tate Nations told me he was leaving his job as a graphic artist from the aforementioned newspaper publisher. Tate wanted to know if I was interested in the job and since I needed the money I said sure. There was one small problem. I wasn’t a graphic artist and I didn’t know how to use any of the software that a graphic artist used. So the night before my interview I grabbed a copy of QuarkXPress (yes, I know, it was a long time ago, before InDesign) and learned how to do page layout and simple ad design. Needless to say I passed the little test they gave me and got the job.

Fast forward a few years and couple other newspapers, I find myself married and in Jackson, MS about to start at LogoStoreUSA, a promotional products company. There I continued my stint as a graphic artist putting company logos on products, designing t-shirts, and an occasional logo, as well as maintaining the company computers and websites. The time and opportunities I had there is what led me to where I am today. While at LogoStoreUSA I built an intranet system and the new company website (no longer up of course), which meant I had to learn HTML, CSS, PHP, MYSQL, database design and how to build and maintain a LAMP server environment. So in my spare time I did all that and more. This would be where my wife would say “you sound conceited”, to which I would reply “not conceit, pride”. I am proud of all the hard work and many hours that I devoted to learning all those things. I didn’t take night classes or have a mentor; I taught myself and yes it was hard.

So now we are up to late 2009 and once again Tate Nations calls me and tells me of a web developer job at Mad Genius, Inc. I jump at the chance, because it is my new found passion. After a few rounds of interviews with Robert “Rube” Rubinoff. I get the job and been enjoying being a developer ever since.