About Me

I’ve been building for the web since I was 16, starting with self-taught HTML, CSS, and Flash, making sites before I knew what the job was actually called.

That early start eventually led to 12+ years of professional product design. Along the way, I realized I wasn’t interested in just making things look good. I wanted to understand why something should exist, whether it was working, and how to make it better.

Today I’m a Senior Product Designer at Pillar4 Media, where I lead UX strategy and product design across 20+ consumer and partner brands, including the experimentation program that’s generated $25M+ in measurable revenue over three years. Before Pillar4, I spent five years at BowFlex, where I established the company’s first Web UX practice and led design across six brands: BowFlex, JRNY, Schwinn Fitness, Nautilus, Octane Fitness, and Modern Movement.

How I Think About the Work

AI is part of how I design now. I use Claude and Claude Code across the full design lifecycle: research, writing, UX flows, design generation, prototype code, and design tokens. The mechanical parts move faster, so I spend more time on hypothesis development and reading post-test data. I’ve also been pushing AI adoption into product and engineering, because the biggest gains show up when the whole team moves at the new pace.

This is the thing I push hardest on with my team and with myself. Changing a color? Why. Moving a CTA? Why. If you walk into any design review knowing your reasoning, you’ll almost never get pushback, and you’ll make better decisions because you actually understand what you’re doing. Design without a reason is decoration.

It’s tempting to jump into visual design, especially when stakeholders want to see something tangible. I always start with the experience before the interface. When the structure and flow are right, the visual layer has something solid to build on. Skip that step and you end up polishing something that doesn’t actually work.

This one surprises people, but I think of engineers as our primary clients. They work directly off our output. If we make their job easier with clean handoffs and clear specs, the whole organization moves faster. I’ve seen that translate directly into shorter iteration cycles and better results.

I sit inside mouse tracking tools and watch how users interact with pages at the flow level, not component by component. I work closely with analysts on the quantitative side and stay involved at every step. Over 45+ structured A/B tests, the losses have probably taught me more than the wins.

I’m based in Central Oregon with my wife, surrounded by high desert landscape that surprises most people who hear ‘Oregon.’ Outside of work, food is a big part of our lives. We’re always trying new restaurants, experimenting with recipes at home, and mixing cocktails every weekend (a hobby I’ve taken more seriously than I probably should). I’ve been riding motorcycles since I was 7, I love spending time outdoors, and I’m almost always in the middle of some kind of home or backyard project. I like to think of myself as an outdoorsy homebody, which somehow makes perfect sense here.