UD Personal Statement

To the UD Hiring Committee,

Growing up in Dayton, the son of a blue collar factory worker, I was repeatedly told that I was going to college so that I could get a job I looked forward to going to every morning. College was not about money, or climbing the social ladder, but about purpose.

On Saturdays, I would help my grandfather crush cardboard boxes and beer cans to take them to the recycling center in downtown Dayton. Every time we drove by CJ he would reminisce (to no end) about his high school football days. One Saturday, after off-loading the cardboard and cans, I think I was about 10, he drove me around UD’s campus. I had never seen such a beautiful place in my provincial upbringing, and there, on the spot, I told my grandfather that one day I would

Specifically, I am grateful for how it educated me. In the past few years, however, I have come to understand UD, not only as a university, but as a fixture of the Dayton community with a unique purpose. Now, I want to work at UD, to broaden my impact beyond the classroom by being a part of UD’s mission to educate students through faith, service, and community.

I would imagine that as UD evolves into the 21st century it faces many challenges posed by a competitive and shifting technological landscape. Embracing this change, while maintaining core institutional values and traditions is just the kind of problem I would like to try and solve.

Working as an educator and in various consulting roles over the past seventeen years, I have had the opportunity to experience how technology is disrupting so many spaces, ranging from politics to toothpaste. I have enjoyed working with and discovering how teams of people develop technological solutions on the back end, onboard and engage users on the front end, improve their products through feedback, and take calculated risks to drive their companies and/or products forward. Most recently, I am proud of the work I am doing on two