About Me

My mission is to live a life of true freedom and empower my team do the same

For a boy from Latvia (once part of the Soviet Union), I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have owned a computer growing up.

My earliest exposure to human-computer interaction was before I could even walk, and it started with a 386 desktop computer running MS-DOS. It did not have a mouse, and I still remember navigating through enigmatic blue directories to find my favorite video games.

I was wildly fascinated that visual responses appeared from haptic inputs from my mechanical keyboard.

At an early age, I realized that I, too, could create these input/response experiences. It didn’t take long for my mom to realize this too and put me in computer classes.

Whether I realized it or not at that time, my love for user experience design was born.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, my family looked to a brighter future and left everything we knew behind to move across the world to the United States.

Taking this leap was easily the most challenging part of my life. We had to learn to swim or sink.

Landing in Miami, I quickly realized that the American Dream was filled with endless opportunities and that I was only limited by my own imagination:

The American Dream embraces anyone who has the courage to pursue it.

Seeking to feed the fascination I uncovered as a child, I moved to California to enroll in the Graphics & Multimedia Design department at College of the Canyons, just outside Los Angeles.

My professors became mentors. Later, colleagues, then friends. (Relationships which I’m now privileged to return to my students)

After graduating the program, I had moved across the States to Tallahassee, Florida with my mind set to attend Florida State University.

I did not get in, but armed with a physical portfolio I had amassed from school, I was fortunate enough to kickstart my career at a local software firm, known for its success in winning state government contracts.

And my career was off! I dove head first and it was time to prove myself as the designer I once dreamed of becoming.

Over the following years, I had the honor of honing my skills working on really high profile projects, starting many of my own entrepreneurial ventures, and giving back to the same Graphics & Multimedia Design program I had graduated from a decade prior—

I had learned to listen, recruit, build, partner, collaborate, advocate, sell, mentor, coach, win, lose, reflect, take action, repeat.

My journey has taught me that with curious focus, any dream can become a reality.

Today, I guide designers through their own journeys of changing the world one input at a time.

I Enjoy:

• Traveling & photography
• Writing
• Weightlifting & fitness
• Having belly laughs with the fam
• Investing in real estate
• Interior design
• Hiking & the great outdoors
• Grilling & smoking meats
• Restoration projects & upcycling
• Sustainability & conservation
• Going to car shows