My professional experience includes several areas of growth: customer relations, web development, and the trades (including woodworking). I’ve also been very fortunate to be able to pass along the skills learned to others through various means including teaching, mentorship, and leadership of a team.
Customer Relations
As a sales person, bicycle mechanic, and manager in a few bicycle shops, a user experience lead in both the public and private sectors, and as a member of several organization’s boards; interactions with, not only customers but team members and others in leadership roles, has taught me valuable lessons in interpersonal relationships. Through these relationships and in my personal life these skills have been honed.
Teaching has also added to my skills in this area. I was lucky enough to have a few neurodivergent students in my classes. This taught me the valuable lesson of being accurate in my speaking, in lessons and instruction. Inaccuracy only leads to confusion. This carries over in every aspect of life including professionalism.
Web Development
Search Engine Optimization
I was lucky in the late nineties to find a job working for one of the leading SEO companies in Wisconsin: WebWise Design & Marketing. The owner and team leaders there took me in and brought me up to speed on full-stack web development, SEO, design, User Experience development, and customer relations. At that time a search for anything Wisconsin related brought up at least a few of our sites within the first page of a Google search.
One of the greatest lessons learned here was to not employ a “gimmick” to a website in order to boost SEO. Instead, use genuine language while being specific about the purpose and information being presented on the site. We were continually able to convey our customer’s business information to the world which created some very special and long lasting relationships.
Accessibility
Lucky for me the work we did at WebWise dovetailed neatly into accessibility, so when I accepted an offer form The University of Wisconsin Platteville as a lead web developer I found a great opportunity to develop my skills in digital accessibility. I attended yearly conferences at Digital Collegium (formerly HighEdWeb) and networked with other web professionals from whom I gained a great deal of cutting edge incites including digital accessibility knowledge.
My accessibility experience continues to grow.
Content Management Systems
Through the work at WebWise and at higher educational institutions I have gained a great deal of experience with WordPress, Drupal, and several other CMSs. This work consists of two main areas: back-end development (including CMS setup, database structures, and development of plugins and modules), and front-end development (which included theme creation, design, and UX best practices).