The Story Behind 

the Work

My passion has always been helping people learn, grow, and succeed. While the settings may have changed throughout my career, the mission has remained steady. 

Long before I became interested in instructional design, I was fascinated by the process of learning itself. As a musician, I got to experience a unique perspective on how effective instruction can transform uncertainty into confidence, and individual effort into collective achievement. I've had many mentors that led with these values, which has left a long lasting impression on me.

My passion for music and fascination with learning naturally led me into education. I've now spent more than a decade designing learning experiences, facilitating instruction, and building programs that help people develop new skills and reach meaningful goals.

Much of my career was spent as a middle school choral music educator. While many people think of choir as simply teaching students to sing, the reality was much broader. Every day required analyzing learner needs, developing curriculum, creating assessments, facilitating large group learning, managing projects, communicating with stakeholders, and designing experiences that helped learners apply new skills in authentic ways. Whether I was creating onboarding materials for a new choir program, organizing large-scale performance events, or designing project-based learning experiences, I was continually asking the same question:

How can I help learners succeed?

One lesson became especially clear throughout my career: students rarely struggled because they lacked ability. More often, they struggled because they lacked confidence. Watching and helping those same students develop confidence, take ownership of their learning, and eventually perform in front of hundreds of people reinforced a belief that continues to guide my work today: