About Me
The Short Version
I am a software developer specializing in Adobe Flash, Flex and AIR. I live in beautiful Canmore, Alberta, Canada at the gateway to Banff National Park and from here I work remotely for clients on a wide variety of projects.
My skills include Actionscript Development (since before Actionscript had a version number), graphic design of Flex interfaces, all aspects of Flex development (skinning, custom components, services, etc..), Cairngorm, MySQL, and PHP. I have worked on projects with large development teams where I contributed only to the Actionscript development and 1 person projects where I have done all design and development including database and server side code. When possible I always try to work in the latest version of Flex and Actionscript to keep my skills up to date.
I am also a firm believer in Object Oriented programming and employing design patterns where appropriate. I am also very practical about this and understand that there are deadlines and a philosophy of continual improvement may need to be employed.
If my skills are something that you can use don't hesitate to contact me.
The Long Version
I am one of the lucky people that have found something in life that they truly love doing and couldn't see themselves doing anything else. What do I do? I build Flex applications. Or to be more precise, I use all of my skills to leverage the Adobe Flash Platform to build beautiful, engaging and usable applications.
To say I love the Flash Platform is an understatement. I have given a lot of time to the Macromedia and Adobe communities over the years, serving as manager of the Calgary Flash User Group, founding and managing the Calgary Flex User Group and being a Flex Community Champion. It is just recently that I step back from these positions to focus on my work for a while but I will be back in the future.
I graduated from the University of Calgary in 1995 with a degree in Fine Arts. At that time I was also an infantry soldier in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserves. I spent the next 5 years in the Army and working as a professional artist. In 2000 I received a medical discharge from the military for damage done to my knees. I was given the opportunity to retrain at this point and choose to return to school to put my Art degree to work and become a graphic designer. The program I took was Multimedia Production which gave a broad overview of programs used in the industry for design and web site development. This is where I first met Flash and it was love at first sight. The first version I used was Flash 5 and I took to Actionscript right away. I was the only student in my class that turned in a 100% Flash web site for the final project and believe me this was no easy feat. I bought books and studied day and night. I used sites like Flash Kit to hone my skills but I was rewarded with a job as a Flash Developer when I graduated. In the time since I have continued to study and learn which goes along with my believe in life long learning and continual improvement. I can honestly say that I am and expert Actionscript developer now.
The culmination of my efforts was to be hired by Critical Mass to oversee Flash development there. While there I completely rebuilt the Flash Development team and made it my mission to get the Flash designers and developers on the same page and working better together. I worked on projects for Mercedes Benz, Dell, Hyatt Hotels, Rolex, Andersen Windows, and Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. I loved my time there but I have always wanted to be self employed so on my 40th birthday I left to start a new chapter. This also happened to coincide with the release of Flex 2
I have been working exclusively with Flex since the release of Flex 2 and I have brought the same passion to it that I brought to Flash. I have built many types of applications from business analytics to image manipulation to vector drawing tools.
Like Actionscript, I am also an expert Flex Developer. Because of the time I spent as a Flash Developer I have a complete understanding of the Flash Player and how it works. I know the ins and outs of building a Flex application that performs well and is responsive to the user. I am constantly studying and have an understanding of what works and what doesn't when building Flex applications. Although I am a self taught developer with a little formal training in programming I have a deep understanding of Object Oriented Programming and design patterns. Further, with my background in art I bring an aesthetic appreciation to Flex development ensuring my application not only look good but are usable.
