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Career Overview

(Updated 08/20/2007)

Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be a scientist (except for that three year break, when I wanted to be a pilot). First it was Astronomer, then Aerospace Engineer, then Microbiologist. I should have stuck with the pilot idea...

In high school, I worked at a Genetics Laboratory called the "Univerisity of Texas at San Antonio Health Science Center Institute of Biotechnology". No, we never made dinosaurs. Yes, we did torture animals (kidding). Don't ask me why I worked at a genetics lab in high school--all my friends worked at burger joints. They also all had dates from time to time. The lab was just as you might envision it: a fancy glass and steel building at the top of an obscure hill hidden off in a forrest in the out-skirts of San Antonio, TX. I had to drive about 25 minutes from school to get there, the last three miles past a guard tower and down a winding, abandoned road. After all that build-up driving there, I was kind of disappointed to find out we didn't do anything really secretive or lead double lives or anything... Here is an aerial photo of the lab:

Anyway, at the genetics lab, I worked (in EXTREMELY small part) on a project to map the human Retino Blastoma Susceptibility Gene promoter sequence. Here is a copy of the study that I helped on:

"Molecular Cloning of Cellular Genes Encoding Retinoblastoma-Associated Proteins: Identification of a Gene with Properties of the Transcription Factor E2F"

I am listed at the end of the paper: "Thanks also... to all of the members of the Lee laboratory for contributions to this project." Working at the IBT was a great opportunity, but like most things in life when you are a teenager, I did not appreciate it as much as I should have at the time.

My work experience at the lab led me to declare a Microbiology major when I got to BYU. I wanted to change the world, one genetically enlarged tomato at a time. I lost excitement for the program within the first two years, and frantically searched for something more fitting for me. On the rebound, I picked Linguistics. Were I more practical in my education I probably would have opted for engineering, or business, or something like that. But, I guess I valued the excitement of learning over the market value of the degree. I studied an awful lot of Philosophy as well, at BYU, but never finished my minor in Logic that I started. I really enjoyed Linguistics and Philosophy, but never really liked school. Strike that... I loved school--the learning part, that is. I just couldn't stand the grading part.

Well, this is supposed to be about career, not school, so let's move on...

After graduating, I did what every graduate in Linguistics does--I panicked. Then I looked for a job in a completely unrelated field.

I should back up a bit for some history at this point...

After three years of school, and a brief hiatus in Southern California where I got married, I took a year off and worked full time at GMAC Mortgage. After quickly realizing that I was not loan officer material, I moved into administration and operations. The VP over our region really liked me and I got a responsible position as the Regional Operations Manager over 15 retail branches in three states.

After returning to school, I took a shot at starting my own web development company with a couple of partners. With basically no investment funds and even less time, that obviously didn't make me rich, but we managed to pay our bills from month to month.

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So, after graduating, I looked for something to utilize my short experience in management or operations. I ran into a former home teacher (if you don't know what that is, ask me later) who had started an interactive design firm called Mindwire here in Provo (actually, I live in Orem now, so "here in Provo" really isn't accurate, but Orem's right next to Provo.) I was hired there to head up project management and the production side of the company. I managed all of the production operations and added a development aspect to the business. I grew and managed the development team of up to 15 employees, including software engineers, creative designers, and project managers.

After a few years making a run at it, We realized that Mindwire was not as scalable a company as it might have been a few years earlier. Without any form of legitimate investment money or reliable residual revenue, we continual faced cash flow problems and had a hard time making good long term decisions in light of short term necessity. To make a long story short, we sold the company to a larger, NASDAQ traded public company called Avalon Digital Marketing Systems, Inc. Avalon was large in terms of people and vision, but pretty small in terms of revenue (as it turns out). A combination of mismanaged acquisitions, bad faith on the part of investors, a little bit of criminal activity sprinkled in here and there, an overall economic downturn, and a number of other factors led to the insolvency of the company within about a year of the Mindwire acquisition. After sliding from around 200 employees all the way down to just over twenty, closing offices in New York, Texas, Hong Kong, London, Orange County, and elsewhere along the way, I was made the Director of Operations and asked to manage the company's sole office in Provo. Avalon declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy and proceeded along a plan to restructure around our now small office. I was tasked to begin a new software development effort, creating the next flagship product of the reorganzed company. As part of this plan, I was made the VP of Technology and Development at Avalon. We emerged from Chapter 11 in December of 2005 and began moving forward with a renewed vision, some investment dollars, and better people to make it happen.

Well, it didn't happen. Investors abandoned, employees jumped ship, and we all walked away a little poorer and a lot wiser. I spent about a year working with Joshua Steimle at MWI (an offshoot of Mindwire) and grooming my own consulting business.

After giving the whole startup/entrepreneurial thing a good run for 8 years or so, I decided to finally go back to school like I had planned to do since finishing undergrad. I applied and got accepted to BYU Law School starting Fall 2007, where I am currently studying.

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