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Background and Early Career

My professional background does not follow a single straight line. Before settling into long-term work in warehousing and logistics systems, my early career was rooted in theatre, live production, and hands-on technical work in environments where systems had to function correctly in real time.

This section provides context for how that background continues to influence how I think about systems, operations, and design.

Theatre and live production

I earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre and spent the early part of my career working in theatrical and live event environments, including full-time work as a rock and roll stage lighting technician. That work involved complex technical systems operating under tight time constraints, with little tolerance for failure and no opportunity to “retry” once a show began.

Live production environments reward preparation, clarity, and calm execution. They also make failure modes immediately visible and public. Those experiences strongly shaped how I think about operational readiness, redundancy, and the relationship between technical systems and the people responsible for running them.

Transition to systems work

Over time, my work moved from live production into RF systems, infrastructure, and eventually broader IT and integration work within warehousing and logistics environments. While the domains changed, many of the underlying concerns did not:

  • Systems must be understandable under pressure
  • Failures should be anticipated rather than explained afterward
  • Tools should support operators, not distract them
  • Preparation and documentation matter most before something goes wrong

Rather than viewing this as a career change, I tend to view it as a shift in context. The same operational instincts apply whether the system is a lighting rig, an RF network, or a business-critical integration pipeline.

Why this still matters

Although my current professional focus is firmly in warehousing and logistics systems, this background continues to influence how I approach design, operations, and reliability. It helps explain an emphasis on observability, operator empathy, and disciplined preparation that runs through the rest of this site.

This context is included not as a résumé history, but as an explanation of perspective.