I was born in the Seattle area, as a child, which was how we did that back in the ’80s. I grew up in the city of Everett, most famous for being the home of the huge Boeing plant that built the 747 (that’s the good one), and being the hometown of Kenny “Danger Zone” Loggins.

As a kid, I always liked movies and TV shows, but it always felt like a thing that didn’t really exist in my sub-suburban reality. But one year, we made a family visit to Universal Studios. And after asking for Babs, developing a lifelong fear of sharks on the tram tour, and probably badgering my parents for an Icee and a giant pickle, we came upon a screen-used K.I.T.T., which was the co-star intelligent car from the David Hasselhoff series Knight Rider. And even better than just letting you see the car from the outside, they let you get inside, for what I assumed was a conversation. You see, on the show, the car talked, and I was pretty sure, as a kid, that the car actually talked. When the car refused to talk to me, I was crushed. And it was at that moment that I realized that movies were fake, and it was just a bunch of guys with beer guts, smoking cigarettes and making up fake shit for the sake of the camera. I also vowed to hate William Daniels forever, regardless of his fine work as John Adams in 1776, or as Dr. Mark Craig on St. Elsewhere, and I held that grudge until several years later when he started playing Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World, and I saw what Topanga looked like.

But we didn’t even have a video camera in my family, and things like that seemed too expensive for a me to acquire on my own, so in middle and high school, I devoted my efforts to learning photography. First with Polaroids, then with grandpa’s old half-frame 35mm camera, and eventually with whatever my latest vintage find from the thrift store was.

After school, and a series of tech jobs, followed by a series of photography jobs, I decided to pursue a Craigslist ad looking for someone to help out on a documentary about haunted places in Denver, Colorado and the ghosts who loved them (Passing Through; unreleased). Luckily, the guy making that film was an Emmy Award-winner several times over, and showed me quickly what it was like to be on an actual soundstage getting me my first paying production assistant job in the industry on a Microsoft ad, showed me first-hand what it was like to produce and budget films, and most importantly, taught me how to edit and use an Avid. (Thanks, Michael!) Since then, I’ve worked on dozens of projects for dozens of production companies and studios, in several states and countries. I’ve worked on more than three hundred episodes of television for dozens of series, dozens of commercials, and several films.

A few that I’m especially proud of include producing the Telly Award-winning corporate film Howard Dental Center: Who We Are, about a Denver dental practice — now part of Colorado Health Network — providing services exclusively to people living with HIV/AIDS, and associate producing Dave Ohlson’s multi-award-winning documentary K2: Siren of the Himalayas. I also produced a miniseries, starring me, called Andy Hates Advertising. And, my most notable achievement: I had a list published by McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

Although the Pacific Northwest will always be home, I’ve made my life in LA for more than a decade now, where I spend many hours in my car, traveling between my apartment and my boat, arguing over the relative quality of Washington versus California seafood (Washington wins, obviously), and learning to live with a constant sense of dread.