About Me

My background:

I was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and lived there until I was 11 years old. During the summer after my 6th grade year, my family moved to Laie, Hawaii, which is a small college town on the north shore of Oahu. From grades 7 through 12 I went to Kahuku High School, where I was active in band and drama.

After high school I attended Brigham Young University—Hawaii, where I majored in English (B.A.) and Theater Arts (A.A.). During my time at BYUH, I worked in various jobs, including graphic designer and staff reporter for Ke Alaka'i, the campus newspaper, and brass musician at the Polynesian Cultural Center. After graduating as class salutatorian in 1993, I spent three months in the islands of Fiji, after which I moved back to the US mainland.

My first job out of college was as assistant to a commercial property manager at CBS Property Services (which was later bought by Koll, which was later bought by Coldwell Banker). After about a year and a half of that, I decided to go back to school, enrolling in the linguistics program at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

Just weeks after I began at BYU, I was introduced to Dr. R. Carl Harris, an educational psychology professor with an impressive list of multimedia projects to his credit. Dr. Harris wanted someone to work with him on a project that would document the Explorations program sponsored by Motorola University. Even though I had done some basic HyperCard development, I had no formal programming experience. In spite of this, Dr. Harris brought me on to help, both of us learning as we went.

With Dr. Harris' support, I began to teach myself multimedia development, moving from Apple's HyperCard to Allegiant SuperCard to Oracle Media Objects and finally on to Macromedia Director. Through trial and error, I was able to learn how to create cross-platform software applications. During my graduate work in linguistics, I was able to combine my developing programming skills with my interest in ASL phonology. The result was the SignLink Lexicon of American Sign Language, which I developed for Sorenson Vision.

Sorenson sponsored SignLink to support its VisionLink product, a video-only conferencing tool geared toward the Deaf. The company hired me to manage the SignLink project, and when SignLink was partially phased out (with a shift in focus to products for the Hearing), I moved into other aspects of marketing, including marketing communications and media relations.

In February of 2001, Sorenson Vision closed its doors. (Sorenson Media and Sorenson Technologies, two of the sister companies, are still managing to survive.) Luckily, I managed to quickly get a job with Ingeo, a fairly new company specializing in automated document solutions for the mortgage and county recording industries. During my stay at Ingeo, I also made an alliance with Iodynamics, an Internet services company started by some friends of mine. On July 22, Ingeo cut 30% of its employees because of problems with funding, and I was one of the 20 or so people involved in that layoff.

I was hired by Independent Mobility Systems in New Mexico, as their national marketing manager, and then went to Indiana to work for The Braun Corporation when they bought IMS. After about 10 months of excruciating nonsense at that wonderful place, I moved the family back to Phoenix—where it all began—to work for DriveTime as their national online marketing manager.

My family:

Since 1995 I have been married to the lovely and talented Melanie Langley Baker, a native of Thatcher, Arizona. Melanie and I met in 1994 in Tempe, Arizona, where we were both living after completing our undergraduate work. We have three children: Ian (born in 1997), Nathan (born in 1999), and Megan (born in 2002). You can find out more about them on my family page, and you can see pictures and watch videos in our Family Album.

My hobbies:

• Barbershop Singing: Music has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I grew up singing and playing in school choirs and bands, and was a four-year member of the Phoenix Boys Choir. In high school, I was active in marching band, and played in the Polynesian Cultural Center Brass Band during both high school and college. Currently, most of my spare time is spent singing in my barbershop quartet: Equinox and my chorus, the Spirit of Phoenix.
• Hot Sauce Collecting: for about 5 years I have been an avid collector of bottled hot sauces. My collection currently boasts more than 250 different varieties, and continues to grow. And yes—I eat the stuff, too.
• Cooking: when I have the time, I love to cook. My specialties are Indian food and fresh salsa.
• Writing: I have had some success in just about every kind of writing, from stage plays to screen plays to novels to poetry. In addition to numerous school, university and community writing honors, I have been the recipient of the Henry Fonda Young Playwright's Award.
• Home Improvement: Since becoming a homeowner, I have found that I really enjoy doing various things around the house. A number of years ago, my wife and I designed and built our own house. We did a full renovation of our house in Indiana when we lived there. Seems like there's always a project to work on.

Stuff I've done that you probably haven't:

• Lived and went to school (high school and college) in Hawaii
• Had lunch in the Senators' dining room in the US capitol building
• Walked on nails at a Hindu pooja ceremony
• Read Twain's Huckleberry Finn while floating on a raft in a river
• Started a round of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" in the crowd at an Aerosmith concert
• Watched a play that I wrote be performed at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
• Took a tour of the canal system of Berlin, Germany, in a canoe with an outboard motor

Okay, that's enough of that.

What's New?

If you don't know me, or don't know me well, you can get a pretty good picture of who I am and what I do from snooping around in this site.

How I pay the bills:
DriveTime
Eclectic Interactive

What I do for fun:
Equinox
Spirit of Phoenix