I've spent the better part of fifteen years doing community development work across Northeast Ohio — mostly Stark and Summit counties. Before that, I ran workforce training programs at a nonprofit in Akron, which is where I learned that the distance between "program exists" and "person accesses program" is often wider than anyone in the funding pipeline wants to admit.
My background isn't academic in the traditional sense. I studied public administration at Kent State, dropped out, went back four years later, and eventually finished. In between I worked retail, drove a delivery truck, and spent a year doing intake at a homeless shelter in downtown Akron. That last job changed how I think about social services permanently.
When you're the person behind the desk asking someone where they slept last night, you learn fast that the system doesn't work the way brochures say it does. Eligibility requirements contradict each other. Waitlists stack up. Referrals lead to voicemails that nobody returns. And the people navigating all of this are doing it while also being hungry, tired, and scared.
That experience is what drives how I write for this site. I don't summarize program descriptions from agency websites. I talk to the people running the programs, and more importantly, I talk to the people going through them. When I say a training program leads to real jobs, it's because I've watched it happen — not because the grant report says so.
What I Write About
Everything on this site that has my name on it falls within five areas: workforce development, education access, housing stability, community health, and civic engagement. These aren't arbitrary categories — they're the five domains where I've built enough direct experience to write with confidence. I don't write about things I haven't been close to.
Contact
You can reach me through the site's contact page. I read everything, though response times vary depending on what's going on.