Learning by building,
one experiment at a time.

Curiosity came first.

I have always been interested in working with computers. My father worked in IT in the Army, so technology was part of my life from an early age. I spent a lot of free time tinkering, experimenting, and trying to understand how computers and systems worked.

Games were one of my first creative entry points. I modified Bethesda games with the Creation Kit and experimented with the Source Engine for Half-Life 2. Before I pursued IT professionally, those tools gave me an early way to create, modify, and learn inside digital worlds.

Turning an interest into a career

I began my formal IT journey in the Cybersecurity Associate program at Laramie County Community College. While studying, I worked as a Student Assistant with the IT Pathway. That role gave me my first professional experience preparing classroom computers, imaging workstations, organizing cabling during construction projects, and helping build technology environments such as Cyber City.

From there, I joined the college’s ITS Help Desk. Supporting students, faculty, and staff helped me develop both technical troubleshooting and the communication skills needed to make technology less frustrating. After about a year, I applied for a full-time position with encouragement from one of the technicians—and I continue to work there today.

Working across the stack

Our support environment is broader than a traditional help desk. I have opportunities to work with servers, virtual machines, thin clients, endpoint deployment, Microsoft 365, Entra ID, Intune, hardware lifecycles, classroom technology, AV systems, and specialized applications used across campus.

The work also requires careful attention to security and compliance, including FERPA, HIPAA, PII, and PCI-related requirements. That variety has taught me to research unfamiliar systems, document what matters, and approach problems with patience.

“I tried this. Here is what happened. Here is what I learned.”

Why Respawn Labs exists

Outside of work, I keep exploring through personal software, homelabs, game development, and new tools. QuestLog grew from my need for a better game backlog tracker. RUINS // dusk.exe became an experiment in procedural worlds, browser-based game development, and late-90s visual style.

Respawn Labs is where I document those projects and the lessons around them. Games teach a useful rhythm: try, fail, understand, return. Respawning is not starting over empty-handed; it is starting again with better information.

A safe public workbench

The public site remains separate from my home systems. It is statically generated and hosted away from the homelab, so documenting an experiment never requires exposing a home server to the internet.