“I've spent my career making sure people don't get left behind by technology.”

My classroom was never quiet. Things on every wall. Students moving. Controlled chaos I was proud of. I started teaching in Galveston, Texas — at a school where four homeless shelters fed into the same building. The hardest possible place to begin. I called it my New York. If I could reach students there, I could reach anyone, anywhere.

What that room taught me has followed me into every job since: people will engage with almost anything if you meet them where they are. My job was never really about the subject on the board. It was about showing someone they were more capable than they believed.

Technology was the tool that proved it. Even in that first classroom, I was integrating technology before it was expected — not because I was a “tech person,” but because I watched what happened when a student who felt invisible suddenly had a way in. A structured way to access information. A reason to participate. Technology leveled something in that room. I never forgot it.

After two years in Galveston, I moved to Alief ISD in Texas — a larger district, 5th and 6th graders, nearly 1,300 students and 100 staff. I stepped into a Technology Specialist role, and I already had opinions about how it should be done.

I built a Technology Professional Development Training Program that served over 100 staff members annually for five years. I managed hardware and software procurement, ran our help desk, implemented a ticketing system, and trained teachers to integrate technology across every subject area — applying Adult Learning Theory not just as a concept, but as the actual design of every session.

And I started a student group I called GEEKs — Grit-minded, Educated, Enthusiastic, Knowledgeable Students. More than 50 students, before-school sessions, our own morning television show broadcast to the campus. Students who came in thinking technology was just video games, and left understanding it could be a career. Those kids showed up every single morning and reminded me why the work mattered.

I never stopped learning — or teaching. After Alief ISD, I spent nearly a decade with Jason Learning as a Curriculum Professional Development Trainer — traveling to school districts across Illinois, New York, Virginia, Louisiana, and Texas, delivering live and virtual training to teachers, executives, and administrators on a real-world science curriculum spanning earth, physical, and life science.

Then came Imagine Learning, where I designed learning cycles for Grades 5–12 and supported educators through curriculum coaching and platform adoption.

Along the way I kept building on my own. A Full Stack Web Development certificate from UT Austin's Houston coding bootcamp. IBM's AI Fundamentals and Cybersecurity Fundamentals. Project Management. Digital Marketing. None of it was required. All of it was curiosity.

Then I found legal technology — and it felt like coming home. I'm now a Technology Instructor at a law firm in Louisiana. I teach attorneys, paralegals, legal administrative assistants, and support staff how to use the tools they depend on every day — and how to use them well.

That means Microsoft 365: Word's advanced features, styles, document automation, track changes, and the features that save legal professionals hours every week. It means Copilot for Microsoft 365 and the workflows it enables across the legal environment. And it means the technology woven into every part of a legal workflow: document management, document comparison, PDF editing, dictation, time entry, and the learning platforms that help people keep up.

The legal environment is demanding. Time is short. Skepticism is high. Attorneys did not go to law school to become technology users — and they will tell you that directly.

That is exactly the room I have been training for my entire career.

I am early in legal technology. I say that without apology. What I bring isn't ten years of legal tech experience. What I bring is a trained, practiced understanding of how adults learn — specifically the adult who is convinced they are “not a tech person.” That person is in every law firm. I know how to find them. I know what they need to hear first. I know how to build the kind of trust that makes someone willing to try something new.

Most technology trainers know the tool. I know the human first. In a time-pressured legal environment, that difference matters more than people expect.

Outside of work, I build things. The best way to teach technology is to keep using it yourself — not just the tools you are paid to teach, but whatever is interesting right now. Lately that means building full websites with Claude AI, generating graphics with Midjourney and DALL-E, connecting APIs, automating workflows, and figuring out how the pieces fit together in practice.

My current project is PickleballFloridaUSA.com — a resource site for Florida pickleball players, built with Google Maps API, RSS feed integration, Cloudflare, AI-generated visuals, and automated social scheduling through Meta Suite. A real site, live on the internet, built by me. More are in progress.

It is not a question of if technology will change your work. It is a question of whether you will be ready when it does — and whether the people around you will be too.

That has been my work for over 20 years. It still is.