I took an indirect path to my studies in architecture. I have always created things and enjoyed problem solving. During high school, I had opportunity to use these skills in a work setting. My grandmother's friend, Peg, was renovating her home and needed help keeping up with her busy life. I helped her with gardening, house cleaning, organization and eventually her move from one huge home to a smaller one. Looking back, this job was the springboard which got me into design.

          I did not go directly from high school to architecture school. At eighteen, architecture was intriguing, captivating, and also overwhelming. I went to art school for a year. It was fun, enjoyable, but not fulfilling. Making pretty things was not enough for me. I wanted my creations to have purpose beyond aesthetic appeal. In my second semester, a furniture design class allowed me to create beautiful things with purpose. I left art school to pursue woodworking. I attended at the New England School of Architectural Woodworking or NESAW, and while on a field trip during the nine month architectural woodworking program; I discovered a little furniture making shop in central Vermont called Charles Shackleton Furniture.

          On that field trip, I fell in love with the atmosphere in the shop. The ten guys in that shop had an easy camaraderie. They built beautiful wood furniture by hand with old fashioned tools and methods. I spoke with the shop manager about their apprenticeship program and took an application home. Two days later, I drove the two and a half hours back to that small Vermont shop for a first interview. Within a few weeks, I was offered a job and arranged to move to Vermont. It was a huge step for me to move to a new state all on my own at the age of twenty two. I built furniture at CSF for four years and became a journeyman furniture maker in that time. I built functional art with my own hands, start to finish. I had loads of problem solving opportunities while creating one of a kind pieces. I loved working in a supportive atmosphere with master craftsmen. I loved many things about building furniture. However, the pieces I built were high end luxury items which were accessible only to a small client base. An accident at work was the catalyst for some serious thinking about where I was headed in life. I loved creating, working with my hands, problem solving, innovating, and working with my amazing co-workers. Unfortunately, for many clients the pieces were more art pieces that were meant to be viewed rather than functional objects to be used, status symbols to be admired not used.

         It was during this time that I realized I wanted to go back to school. In the eight years that had passed since high school I had grown. I was ready to begin a career that synthesized all of my skills; listening, client interaction, problem solving, design, creativity, innovation, drive to make functional objects and spaces. Architecture was still a daunting major, but it was the one that I felt could most fulfill me.

          I returned to school in the fall of 2008. Architecture is proving a great fit for me. My classes are challenging and fulfilling. I have taken complementary courses which fuel my passions, particularly, landscape architecture studios and classes which focus on sustainability and regenerative design. I graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a BFA Architecture in the spring of 2011, and I began my graduate studies at the same university that fall.