About Me: My Story & the Path That Led Me to This place
Chapter 1:
I grew up in Mont Belvieu, Texas. A small town in the southeast part of the state. I studied ballet for fourteen years. I got my first AOL account in 1994 and was an avid user of chatrooms and AIM (this is relevant, I promise). I graduated in 2002 and moved to San Marcos, Texas, to attend Texas State University.
CHAPTER 2:
At Texas State, I got a Bachelor of Science in Digital and Photographic. It was a weird mash up of science and art classes. It was the transitional period between film and digital photography. To this day, I think I should have received an art degree. I took every art basic requirement, advanced art classes, every art history course offered, five technology classes in the science building, and two introductory level biology classes that ate my lunch. In 2003, MySpace (RIP✌️) launched, and that was my introduction to HTML and CSS. I think I used AOL as a means to get out my small town, then MySpace was just a continuation of that. I got to do some really cool stuff while I was at Texas State, though.
> I drove the glass bottom boats at Aquarena Springs, and got to take care of the endangered species tanks.
> I bartended at Gruene Hall. This was truly an experience of a lifetime. Best show: Leon Russell.
> My PE credits were scuba diving and wakeboarding at Texas Ski Ranch.
> I took Renaissance Art History in Florence, Italy, with professors from Texas State.
> I did an internship with with a software company that worked with WWE to produce video games. I split prime rib with John Cena, who is the nicest. I photographed CM Punk, The Undertaker (not very nice), Triple H, the Boogey Man, and some others.
chapter 3:
I graduated college in August 2007, aka, the beginning of the Great Recession. Nobody had money to hire a fresh out college photographer, go figure. I bartended my way through that until I finally landed a job at a screenprinting company that, to this day, we order our yard signs from for our rentals and sales. Little did I know that all those late nights at the bar would lead me to meeting the hottest sound engineer in the world, Kyle Hendricks.
I moved from the sign company to Apple, did a brief stint at a boutique mutual fund and the Acton School of Business (0 stars, do not recommend), then landed at Facebook. At that point, Kyle and I were living together but not married. His dad called and said “come learn how to operate this property management company or we’re selling it.” So, we packed our stuff into a Penske truck and moved to San Antonio in 2014.