Published: 08/18/2015

When in life do you grow the most as an individual? Is it through the easy, everything is good time of life? I doubt it; college was tough for me. I went from home schooled from K-12 to the real world of classroom learning, where I obtained knowledge by more then just reading a book.

College was a tough experience, I had to learn a new way of thinking and approaching learning. It was really worth that experience and has been the best investment I’ve ever made for myself. But college was really hard, in the beginning I had a D average, later I graduated with a “C” average. What else made it hard? I was working nearly 40 hours a week between internships, consulting and startup work. It was a crazy time to be alive.

Now that I’ve graduated, moved on and got married, life has gotten easy. Guys like me aren’t very happy with easy for very long. So how has my life gotten crazy again? I started a gluten free cookie company last September with my wife. We sell to coffee shops and farmers markets. We’re by the books, I’m talking commercial kitchen, UPC codes, professionally printed labels and packaging.

The next step for us is approaching large natural grocery stores, which is what we’re in the process of. Its been a crazy experience. What have I learned from this experience?

Yes, I’ve learned a lot but I have a long way to go! Beyond cookies, when I took the job with United, it was a big step for me. I was mostly new to compliance (only worked at it from a abstract perspective before) and now thrust into a complicated world with all kinds of crazy rules and regulations.

From United, I’ve learned about: HIPAA, Compliance, Security, Scaling, MySQL optimizations and way more about SOA then I ever thought I could know. Everyday is a struggle to stay afloat in the fast paced environment to make sure our deadlines are met, we’re secure and we’re delivering highly tested, highly reliable code.

It’s a wonderful place to be. Embrace the struggle.