About Brad

Hi, I’m Brad, and I’m the brains behind this operation.

I’m a multipotentialite (read that as I enjoy too many different fields & kinds of work to settle on just one) on a mission to connect people with the information & tools they need to understand themselves & how they connect with the world around them. Depending on the day, that mission might present itself as writing software to help a small business communicate more efficiently, designing & running AV & digital signage systems at events to help keep attendees informed about what’s going on, helping the students on the FIRST Robotics teams that I help run try something new & grow their skills, making art, or working with a student who’s struggling to fit in figure out who they are & where they belong.

My goal throughout middle & high school was to be a computer technology teacher, but life rarely works out according to plan. I did my undergrad in Computer Science at Purdue & jumped right in to a hybrid technology integration & classroom teaching position at one of the top public high schools in Indiana. That experience burned me out hard and, combined with my experience with the FIRST Robotics program, really made me start questioning how we think about our young people and the effectiveness of school when it comes to preparing our young people to be happy, healthy, productive members of society. I spent the next several years doing web development & IT work back at Purdue and then at an educational robotics company. During the summer of 2021, I decided it was time to jump ship and started doing a variety of freelance & consulting work, including this!

Beyond my actual job, I’ve been involved as a FIRST Robotics mentor since college. I’ve been with FIRST Robotics Competition Team 461 since the fall of 2012, had the mantle of being in charge thrust upon me a few years later, and have helped lead the program through some big transitions, moving three times, and reinventing / absorbing the junior high FIRST Tech Challenge & upper elementary FIRST LEGO League teams. I’m also on the board of directors for FIRST Indiana Robotics and volunteer in a variety of roles at our events across the state. My FIRST experience really showed me that empowering students to drive their own learning while surrounded by supportive, knowledgeable mentors is so much more impactful and effective at helping kids learn & prepare themselves for an unpredictable future, and this was really the start of my dive into non-traditional progressive education & youth empowerment work.