The Story So Far
Storytelling is the core of what I love and how I operate. A good story means a goal to strive for, a hero who we can root for, and a series of obstacles that will capture our attention as the hero struggles to overcome and reach their goal, learning and growing along the way, ultimately becoming a new person altogether. From business to leisure, I love engaging and telling a good story.
My own journey as a professional storyteller has moved along an unexpected but galvanizing progression. As I was in my final year of university, contemplating whether to continue on as a Master's student or find a job, I was offered an opportunity to help my long-time friend and college roommate launch a small private hybrid school. Operating out of a barely used church, we painted walls, bought supplies, and advertised our services, gathering up only about 10 students in our first year. As an ardent supporter and collaborator, I poured my efforts into helping the vision of the school develop and grow — which it did over the course of 6 years while I was there, from a class of 10 to a school of 70+.
From there I was recruited to teach as an adjunct at Boise State, first teaching a survey course on Western Philosophy to freshmen, and then a course on reading and comprehending scientific literature — using the lens of climate change. Although not a lead instructor, I had a critical role in piloting the material, providing feedback, then ultimately teaching and grading the course, with about 60 students per semester.
After 6 years of teaching, I moved with my wife to Seattle, where she pursued a doctorate in Urban Planning, while I started my corporate career at Amazon. I worked first as a detection specialist, analyzing customer data for trends related to devices and Alexa services. We would take data insights, determine the scope and impact, then build a case using the narrative structure to ensure issues were properly escalated and monitored by product and engineering teams. A bad write-up meant issues were not properly fixed and customers would suffer. It took a keen eye for trends, a proper sense of impact, and a compelling case for escalation.
After just 4 months in this role I was promoted as a program manager for a newly emerging program, which took escalations and determined if they were worthy of a mass email campaign to customers. In this role I worked closely with product managers, legal, PR, and engineers to ensure we were making the right decision to notify customers, and were crafting the right messages that would align to our brand, were appropriate to the issue, and complied with both legal and PR concerns. Using the customers' needs as our north star and a strong sense of camaraderie, our team was able to thrive, growing from a team of 4 to about 16 in two years.
Eventually I moved to a Content Strategist role in Amazon Books. It was an exciting challenge — taking on a new role, working on a team and within an organization of which I previously knew nothing. Although I loved working with my stakeholders and received high praise for my work on product and service launches, I was let go after a year in the role. While difficult, this has been a blessing, providing time to develop hobbies, work on writing every day, and seek opportunities to serve in the future.
Outside of work I love to read books (especially about ancient history, 1930s pulp stories, and film theory), skateboard around Seattle, and getting back into both biking and snowboarding. Beyond individual activities, I love going to old movies, seeing stand-up comedy, and attending storytelling events such as The Moth and many of the talks hosted by Town Hall with my wife.
I look forward to writing, developing, and presenting content for the customers of your company — because the customers are the real heroes of every company's story. Without them, nothing could exist.