From Flash
to Founder

The early chapter was hands-on and multimedia-heavy: Flash, ActionScript, interface design, games, websites, video, and the kind of practical learning that comes from shipping real work for real people.

• Became an Adobe Certified Expert in Flash Professional CS5
• Built games, custom components, learning tools, and multimedia projects
• Learned to move fluidly between design tools and code

Earned a Bachelor of Integrated Studies from Weber State University with emphases in Computer Science, Multimedia, and Graphic Design. That mix still explains a lot: systems thinking, visual craft, and a bias toward useful products. Coursework connected programming fundamentals to desktop interfaces, networked games, and database-backed websites while I was also building professional experience.

• Blended engineering, design, and multimedia instead of choosing only one lane
• Practiced data structures, sorting, searching, and file processing in C++, including coursework from 2007
• Worked with Java Swing and AWT interfaces, with sockets and threads in networked-game coursework
• Explored Ruby on Rails models, controllers, and database relationships, alongside PHP web coursework

At U.S. Institute of Languages, my work included the pieces behind the learning experience: reusable interface controls and players that loaded and managed lesson content. In 2009, I adapted an earlier Virtual Instructor implementation into a document class for the lesson player. Building useful parts was becoming as important to my work as building individual screens.

• Created reusable controls such as SliderX in the shared ActionScript library
• Adapted the Virtual Instructor player to manage external SWF lesson content
• Combined programming with the visual and multimedia craft of language-learning software

Joined Reading Horizons and moved deeper into EdTech product development: building software for reading instruction, internal tools, games, lesson systems, and the technical foundations behind learning products.

• Built educational games and software tools used in learning workflows
• Created internal tools that saved production time for lesson development
• Grew from individual contributor work into broader product and team influence

The old portfolio is full of useful artifacts from this stretch: children's learning games, HTML5 experiments, WordPress and PHP sites, UI concepts, logos, video work, and design projects. It is not the main pitch anymore, but it is proof of range.

• Built learning games including Dino Drop, Letter Leap, Card Match, and Monkey Run
• Explored Flash, AIR, and Starling versions of learning games as the technology evolved
• Brought games such as Card Match to HTML5 with JavaScript and CreateJS
• Designed websites, interfaces, promotional assets, logos, and motion pieces

Joined Loyalty when the web application was approximately one-third complete, finished its front end, and created the iOS and Android mobile version. On a three-person team, shared ActionScript and Flex code made it practical to bring the same customer-satisfaction data to mobile and deliver a pilot on schedule.

• Worked alongside a back-end developer and a systems administrator
• Architected the applications to share most of their code, with separate files for device-specific UI differences
• Used Adobe AIR to deliver iOS and Android apps with limited native development experience on the team
• Shipped a pilot on schedule to enthusiastic feedback from internal stakeholders and participating companies
• Left shortly after the pilot; later outcomes are outside my firsthand experience

Stepped into engineering leadership at Reading Horizons, responsible for team direction, product delivery, architecture decisions, technical quality, and helping people do their best work.

• Led engineering work across product development, QA, and infrastructure
• Partnered with Product, Design, Curriculum, and business stakeholders
• Coached engineers while keeping delivery focused and practical
• Combined leadership of the web application team and two instructional iOS developers with hands-on creation of the 2015 iPad games app

Created the Reading Horizons companion iPad games app between April and August 2015, ready for the upcoming school year. Adobe AIR let me reuse substantial ActionScript 3.0 code from the web games I had built and focus the remaining time on bringing the experience to the devices our elementary schools used.

• Built most of the original web games and contributed to the broader phonics software
• Substantially reworked Cannon Blast, a game originally created by another developer
• Led the web application team and two developers building the instructional side of the iOS software
• The iPad offering helped secure a major Illinois deal
• Traveled with the lead iOS developer to visit schools, answer questions, and troubleshoot during adoption

Led and built an internal knowledge platform to make engineering information easier to find, validate, and maintain. The core idea was simple: stale knowledge should be visible instead of quietly dangerous.

• Used Markdown and structured metadata to keep authoring lightweight
• Surfaced validation age so team knowledge had an obvious freshness signal
• Reduced repeated interruptions for answers that should have been findable

Launched the business that became NexSolvo, with BrainFusion Learning as the first major product focus: game-based learning tools for teachers, trainers, and learners who need better retention without more complexity.

• Built BrainFusion Games as a competitive quiz and learning platform
• Started validating pricing, positioning, and early customer demand
• Shifted from only building software to building a business around useful products

June 2026 priorities centered on supporting a major Reading Horizons product launch alongside growing NexSolvo and BrainFusion. This chapter reflects the balance between engineering leadership and building an independent business.

• Supporting a major June 2026 product launch at Reading Horizons
• Growing BrainFusion toward paying customers and a clearer market focus
• Building with craft while protecting family, faith, and community priorities

Moved into a new role at Reading Horizons, partnering with departments to solve business problems through AI, automation, and custom software. The work combines hands-on engineering with helping employees use agentic workflows.

• Work with departmental teams to understand workflows and identify opportunities for automation
• Design and build AI agents and custom software tailored to department needs
• Train employees to use agentic workflows in their day-to-day work

By late 2026, my projects included tools for audio production, local development, and visual design work alongside games and web products. The same interest that led to early components and production utilities now shows up in desktop apps, automation, and browser tools. This collection includes working tools and product experiments at different stages.

• Polly TTS Studio: text and CSV batches to audio, with a Python/Streamlit version and a React/TypeScript desktop version backed by Rust and Tauri
• Development tooling: PowerShell project launchers and SolvoBridge, an Electron desktop launcher
• Browser tools: LupaLayer for design overlays and inspection, and InvisiPixels for recovering image transparency
• SolvoFit experiments: a Dart progression engine and Flutter mobile implementation, now kept as reference alongside the primary Next.js PWA