About Me: Personal

I’m in my 30’s, married with two kids, two dogs and live in St Johns, FL. Jacksonville is where I’ve lived since I was born, except for a 4 year period while I was away at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Why stay in one place? Frankly, I love the climate and the city… and it’s just home. I have had an itch to live in a big city… specifically I’d like to live in a city like Chicago, Boston, or Seattle… it just has to be near the ocean. I doubt I’d last far inland for very long as the beach is very relaxing and therapeutic. Once a year my family vacations on top of a mountain in western North Carolina for the Independence Day (July 4) holiday weekend and for a week on a beach in South Carolina mostly off the grid… it’s wonderful, relaxing, and very recharging.

I love both pro and college [American] football (while I prefer the NFL a bit more), play fantasy football every season, and have a passion for the strategy & numbers in the game (stats, trends, Vegas' odds, etc).

About Me: Professional

I’ve always been into building things (Lego’s as a kid, software in high school / college / professionally). In 1998, between my junior and senior year at the University of Florida, I got an internship with a small web development shop called RAMWORKS. I learned a ton from the people there… especially Ron F., Greg R., and Danny T..  I mention RAMWORKS specifically because there are two things that I took away from that job that are still the foundations in my professional beliefs, attitude, and generally how I approach problems: (1) anything can be done… it’s just a matter of time and money and (2) I thrive off the implied challenge when it's stated that something can't be done. These two things/attitudes are part of the foundation of how I approach my job. I’ve taken that approach for just about every project… only time I say ‘no’ to the question “can you do [X]?”, it’s usually based on a policy, timeframe, or cost; external influencers that are not part of the core challenge.

Primarily I am a Microsoft developer specializing in the .NET Framework & content management, specifically Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 and SharePoint. In April of 2005 I was recognized by Microsoft for my community contributions by being awarded Most Valuable Professional for Microsoft Content Management Server & have received the award annually for SharePoint Server every year since. Most of my work these days involves working with the Microsoft SharePoint Products & Technologies. With my background in Microsoft Content Management Server, I have a deep focus on the Web Content Management (WCM) and Enterprise Content Management (ECM) capabilities in SharePoint Server.

In May 2009 I teamed up with Ted Pattison to start a new company, Critical Path Training, LLC., dedicated to providing the best SharePoint training out there. We have the best people in the business working with us on writing our own courseware for developers, administrators, web designers, end users & power users. Stop by our site and get more info on our offerings!

Presenting & Speaking

I'm also a frequent speaker at various community events in throughout the United States (such as code camps and user groups) where I talk about various technology topics, mostly SharePoint though. In addition to the community events, I've also presented at national & international conferences such as SharePoint Connections, VSLive!, TechEd, SharePoint Conference, SharePoint Best Practices UK (London), Microsoft's internal TechReady conference as well as many others.

About this site

The majority of my site is implemented using the SubText blogging engine & a custom skin. The site is hosted at OrcsWeb. In case you're wondering, I highly recommend everything I'm using to host & manage my site.