My path into IT started the way a lot of people's does, with a screwdriver and a YouTube video, building my first budget PC in 2013 to play games with friends. That curiosity turned into being the go-to technical resource for everyone I knew, and eventually into a career.
I started at Eustis Mortgage at 16 and returned during college as one of the first hires in their new in-house IT department, beginning as a Help Desk Analyst. Being part of a small team with a large mandate meant exposure well beyond the usual scope: networking, deployments, and the SQL/SSRS reporting that keeps a mortgage company's loan pipeline moving. I completed my B.S. in Information Technology at Tulane in parallel, and it was coursework in networking and cybersecurity during my final year that made the direction clear: I wanted to focus on the defensive side of this field.
My mentor, the Systems Administrator who spent years training me for more responsibility, eventually left Eustis and I was offered his role. That transition was the defining moment of my career. I went from escalating tickets to being the person tickets escalated to, and from sitting in on vendor meetings to leading them. My scope today covers the full stack: networking, security, identity, and database administration across 150+ endpoints and 20+ offices in six states, including engineering Conditional Access in Entra ID and leading our SASE migration from Cato Networks to FortiSASE.
The homelab you're browsing is what happens after hours: built deliberately to develop the hands-on security engineering experience that bridges where I've been and where I'm going. The goal is a SOC analyst role where I can bring that full picture to bear.
