My career began at the Statesboro Herald, where I started on the education and government beat. Before long I’d picked up photography duties, page layout, and the entertainment section. A few state press awards came out of that stretch, along with a good sense of how to find a story, write it straight, and ship it on time.

That entertainment page grew into Connect Statesboro, an alt-weekly aimed at the university community and under-30 crowd in Statesboro and Bulloch County. I was the founding editor. I built it, ran a small team, worked with writers, and pushed us toward web-first before most local publications were thinking that way. After my successor ran into a rough patch, they brought me back to right the ship. I did, and the publication continued for years afterward. That call back tells you something about the relationships I tend to build with the people I work with.

In 2009, I started Stouthouse Media. We’ve done commercials, corporate video, and TV work for clients including Georgia Southern University, where we produced the football and basketball coach’s shows for three seasons on Fox Sports South, plus athletics videos for both internal and external use. The Georgia Southern Foundation brought us on for fundraising videos. If you want to see examples of that side of my work, the site has client samples and project examples. When I look at the company’s trajectory honestly, the biggest lesson came before COVID: I had three major clients and thought that was diversified enough. It wasn’t. I learned the hard way what actual risk management looks like, and I don’t make that mistake twice. The company’s most ambitious project is also its current one: a nationally broadcast TV series.

Since 2022, I’ve been the Creative Director for “Where the Food Comes From,” a nationally broadcast agriculture series on RFD-TV hosted by Chip Carter. I shoot and edit every episode. Small crew, usually two to five people. I handle all the post — color, audio, graphics, delivery. The show airs on RFD-TV, streams on RFD-TV Now, Cowboy Channel+, and YouTube, and reaches international audiences through several other outlets. We’re in Season 4 now.

Chip and I go back years. A mutual friend connected us when he needed some video work, and that turned into Stouthouse Media producing weekly videos for his news site, Southeast Produce Weekly. When he made the jump to a full show on RFD-TV, I came with him.

Our current traveling rig is a couple of Canon DSLRs, a Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera 6K G2, Panasonic professional camcorders, and a bunch of Rode Wireless Pro mics that solve a lot of pain points. Audio and editing are where I’m strongest. I’ve also gotten good at using AI to bail out post-production problems.

I didn’t plan on becoming a teacher. I’d done some video work for Claxton High School — my alma mater — to help them secure state funding for a CTAE-focused program within the school. They got the funding. (I’d like to think my work helped.) I even came up with the program’s name: “The Den.” It meant enough to me that I got it tattooed on my arm.

When The Den’s leadership said they needed someone to teach a combined Journalism and A/V class, I wanted in. I started in 2020 with two sections and no teaching experience. Now I’m full-time, teaching Journalism and Broadcast Video Production, Chorus, and A/V Technology on a block schedule. The program grew because the students got better, and the school kept adding sections to match.

The best parts of teaching are the ones nobody plans for. The kid with ADHD who can’t sit still in other classes but finds focus in a video editing timeline. The introvert who finally speaks up when you hand her a title — “Ambassador” — and a reason to own the room. A senior soprano who tears through the Queen of the Night aria because she actually likes it, not because anyone assigned it. A student who’d been nothing but trouble until someone put a script in his hands and he discovered he loves reading out loud.

I use AI tools in my classroom because they work. Gemini CLI handles the administrative grind of lesson planning so I can focus on the students instead of the paperwork. NotebookLM lets me build knowledge bases for students on everything from DaVinci Resolve to yearbook software — if a class is stuck on something, I can spin up a resource fast. I built a seating chart app using Claude and Codex, mainly because I hate making seating charts. A few of my colleagues picked it up.

My degree from Georgia Southern is in Music Composition. I completed the coursework and oral comprehensive exams for a master’s in the same field. I’ve spent more than 30 years playing keyboards with different bands, different genres, different places — everything from classy background music at high-dollar events to bars with chicken wire around the stage to touring with a Nashville group and playing huge shows with thousands of people in the audience.

What I’d never done until fairly recently was have the confidence to play solo piano and vocal gigs. Once I got past that hurdle, I found that I love the tightrope of it. The audience picks the direction. I call out songs I barely know, try things cold with an iPad propped on the piano, and hope that charisma and humor carry me when the chords don’t.

Dueling pianos was a natural outgrowth of that, and in Tonya Scott I found a partner who complements me perfectly. She’s got decades of experience in the format. We do bar gigs, corporate events, private parties.

I build tools when I need them. I’m not a developer by training, but I can describe what I need and iterate until it works. Everything here was built using Claude, ChatGPT Codex, and Google’s tools.

The dueling pianos app came out of doing gigs with Tonya Scott. Audience scans a QR code, requests a song, tips if they want. We get a live dashboard showing what’s in the queue, and the bar’s TV display cycles through song facts and upcoming requests. It’s been running at actual gigs. The open mic manager works the same way — QR sign-up, live lineup on the screen.

The seating chart app happened because I was spending too much time shuffling kids around. You give it a roster and whatever constraints matter — who can’t sit near whom, who needs to be up front — and it runs through thousands of combinations until it finds one that works. A few other teachers in the building picked it up.

Then there’s the trivia video generator. I’ve been hosting bar trivia for about 20 years — currently weekly at Pour House Pub — and I write all my own questions. The app takes those questions from a Google Doc, parses and formats them, renders video with backgrounds and music, and handles the YouTube descriptions and thumbnails. Point it at a file, click go, review the picks, done. I also built an AI lesson planning workflow that pulls my syllabi, finds the week’s standards, and drops a finished plan into the district template.

I want to do more with AI in education. Not the hype version, the practical kind: tools that actually help students and teachers get things done. I’m looking for work that mixes consulting, training, and speaking with hands-on production. I also want to scale up: bigger shows, larger teams, network-level projects.

Instructional designer, creative director, media producer, EdTech consultant, L&D manager — I fit best where those labels overlap. I care about whether the problem gets solved, not whether the solution looks impressive. I’d rather work smarter than grind for the sake of grinding.

Remote or hybrid is my preference, and I love travel when it’s tied to the work. I’m established where I am, but I’m not ruling anything out. If you’re at an EdTech company, a media org, a training outfit, or a creative shop that wants someone who builds things and figures it out along the way, I’d like to hear from you.