Sitting in my dad’s Union 76 gas station, I would draw his race car (number 76) parked in the farthest stall. This was 1973, and I was in kindergarten. Being an artist at age 5 is cute, but at age 15 it became the antithesis of high school football running back soon to be cop, pastor, community patriot. The last straw for my dad came when he grounded me the entire year after I quit the Vikings football team to devote all my time to the art club and punk rock band. At that time I knew there was no turning back.

It wasn’t until my first year at Memphis College of Art that I realized I hadn’t been drawing my dad’s race cars, but I had been designing them — exploring form and compositions with the numerals 7 and 6 and sponsor logos galore wrapping around the the dented metallic frame organically warping and compressing with each Friday night event.

I earned my BFA in 1991 and abandoned the glamour of advertising after falling in love with editorial design, taking a job at a national publishing company. Looking to take the next logical step following the leap from artist in town of 13,000 to designer in city of three million, I sought work in Chicago where the buzzword was “new media”. Twenty-five years later I’ve been agency and in-house for American Airlines, Sam’s Club, Hilton, Walgreens, Groupon, and everything in between taking me from Chicago to Nice, to Tokyo, and to Seattle.

Taking my career to the level of a calling, I find challenges of modernity a novel pursuit. Design is created and given away, communication is disseminated, our work is absorbed and if successful enmeshed in humanity. It is sacrificial. I am a designer, but first and foremost I am a public servant.