I’ve lived in Utah for most of my life and I am a longtime resident (nearly twenty years) of Spanish Fork.
I came to Utah at the age of four when my dad ended his honorable service in the United States Navy and took a job with Utah Power and Light as a power generation engineer. My family settled in West Valley City, where I attended Robert Frost Elementary and Valley Junior High.
My father had a job change that took our family to a rural part of western Washington state, and I spent my four years of high school there. Then another job change took the family back to West Valley City, Utah—but I headed off to college at Brigham Young University. I was honored to be a recipient of BYU’s highest scholarship award for incoming freshmen.
Aside from a two-year stint in Hokkaido, Japan, I’ve lived in Utah County ever since. My wife Shannon and I are the parents of four delightful and highly amusing daughters.
I graduated from BYU with a bachelors in Computer Science and later earned a masters degree in the same field, also from BYU. I’ve worked as a software engineer for employers in fields ranging from higher education to mobile-app startups to cybersecurity firms. I love analyzing systems to understand what they do, identifying problems, and devising solutions—skills that I’m ready to apply to public service.
I’ve been involved in civic matters throughout my life. I was a Boy Scout as a teen and served as Scoutmaster for seven years for two different troops. I volunteered as a signature collector for an anti-gerrymandering ballot initiative (Prop 4) and for other candidates. I have attended numerous town hall and city council meetings and have frequently communicated with federal, state, and local representatives. I vote in every election and I have contributed as an unpaid volunteer to an open-source election management software project.
In 2022, I ran for my state House seat in Spanish Fork as a candidate for the United Utah Party. I greatly enjoyed being able to visit the homes of voters and talk with them about issues.
I’m an avid hiker, a fan of Brandon Sanderson’s writing, a passable reader and speaker of Japanese, and a shameless punner. Don’t hold that last one against me!