Past achievements and what have you

Boards, committees, commissions:

• Sherburne County Economic Advisory Committee
• DFL State Central Committee Delegate
• CD6 DFL Director
• Sherburne County DFL Director
• DFL Precinct Chair (Big Lake City P3)
• President of City Council / Vice Mayor (North College Hill, OH)
• Farrington’s Grove Historical District Board Member
• NCH Business Association Executive Committee
• OKI Regional Council of Governments Board of Directors
• Chair of Mayor’s Taskforce on Information Technology
• Zoning Appeals Board Member
• Secretary of Mayor’s Taskforce on Land Reuse
• Charter Review Commission
• Kentucky State Representative for the proposed US Public Service Academy
• Democratic Party Precinct Executive (North College Hill, OH)
• Kentucky Colonel

Professional Life:

• You can find this info on LinkedIn

Side Projects:

• (2015) First Place - Ohio Polithon on Student Debt. Went on to compile a policy document based on it and brief my Ohio state congresswoman.
• (2009) OokaBooka - An e-commerce website that Brandon Kuntz and I developed for the first PayPal X competition. Later entered into the first Xavier X-Lab competition and Brandery class. 25k downloads by year two, 125k by year three. Competed directly with well established players in the e-book publishing space.
• Past senior/junior projects advised:
  • (2010) Multiparty online food ordering platform
  • (2015) Open access journal platform
  • (2016) Ledger (Quicken personal finance alternative)

Things I’ve Done:

• Nerd at The Nerdery
• Geek on the Geek Squad
• Founded and operated a start-up
• Worked at a FAANG company
• Worked (briefly) on Wall Street
• Job Shadow at Juniper Networks in Silicon Valley (thanks Experience.com! Looks like you went out of business in 2012)
• Ran for local office (a few times)
• Received the Key to the City award (Covington, KY)
• Competed in start-up weekends
• Competed in business (case) competitions
• Rocked a fellowship with a Hollywood TV studio
• Had a Chicago dog in Chicago, a New York-style pizza in New York City, a Philly Cheesesteak in Philadelphia and a Guinness in Dublin
• Studied, lived and worked abroad
• Been to 8 countries and 36 states
• Toured 6 large breweries/distilleries and 18+ smaller ones across four countries including Germany
• Biked 50+km of the Wild Atlantic Way in Co. Sligo, Ireland
• Been on 9+ ghost tours across three countries
• Took in Stonehenge
• Rode on a gondola in both Venice and Vegas
• Visited Big Ben and the British Parliament in London
• Lobbied for increased NASA funding in Washington, D.C.
• Attended Barack Obama’s inauguration there too
• Notable State & National Parks: Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, Mammoth Cave, Niagara Falls, Hoover Dam, Gettysburg, Mount Rushmore, Great Sand Dunes, Petrified Forest, Alcatraz, Roan Mountain
• Rehabbed a house
• First generation in my family to graduate college, get a master’s degree, and own a home
• Kentucky Boys’ State
• Huntsville Space Camp/Marshall Space Flight Center (thanks Tyson Foods!) and went to the Kennedy Space Center/Cape Canaveral

Many of these things would not have been possible without the help and generosity of others. I try and pay it forward where I can. Specific call outs to past teachers, professors and support staff:

• Karen Bader
• Sally Mills
• Dennis Pattinson
• Owen Huff
• Tara Davidson
• Curt Clifton

and past mentors:

• Gary Webster
• Kenny Young
• Daniel Molina

Thank you

Student Competitions:

FBLA: The Future Business Leaders of America
SkillsUSA-VICA: The SkillsUSA Competition of The Vocational Industrial Clubs of America
STLP: Student Technology Leadership Program
CH1 SPW: Channel One News Student-Produced Week (unfortunately the program went off the air in May 2018)

• Finalist in IEEE CHC60 Computing History Competition (2006)*
• First Jim Huff Scholar (2005)
• Coca-Cola Regional Scholar (2005)
• U.S. Presidential Freedom Scholar (2005), President’s Award for Educational Excellence (2005, 2001 and 1999), and President’s Volunteer Service Award (2004)
• 1st Place in the entire United States - CH1 SPW Webmaster (2004)
• 1st place in the entire state of Kentucky in SkillsUSA Web Design (2005)*
• 2nd place in the entire state of Kentucky in FBLA Network Design (2005)
• 2nd Place in the entire state of Kentucky in FBLA Technology Concepts (2003)
• 2nd Place in all of northern Kentucky in FBLA Website Development (2004)
• 1st Place in all of northern Kentucky in SkillsUSA-VICA Technical Math (2004)
• 1st Place in all of northern Kentucky in SkillsUSA-VICA Cisco Internetworking (2003 and 2004)
• 2nd Place, NKU Foreign Language Fair (2002)
• 2nd Place, Covington Optimist Club’s Oral Speaking Competition (2002)
• STLP State Award (2001) - description below
• >95th percentile on the 7th grade PSAT (2000), placing me in Duke TIP and a summer astronomy program at the University of Kansas (2001)

*=Team event, because you can go further together

I was active in my school district’s STLP from 1992 through junior high and won various tech fairs. A 2001 win qualified me for a trip to Louisville to teach teachers how to better PowerPoint. The following summer (2002) the teachers just invited me to attend the same professional development course as them - Web Programming with HTML and JavaScript at Lexington Community College. Through STLP I became my junior high’s webmaster. Then with that experience, my high school’s, my college department’s and the rest is history, eventually leading to this site!

About Me:

Apple IIe I rescued from a school dumpster

I was raised in poverty in the city of Covington, Kentucky. “Covington is a Democratic stronghold right across the Ohio River from Cincinnati … With its bars and restaurants and proximity to downtown Cinci, [Covington] attracts a mix of Millennials, empty-nesters, rich business leaders and bohemians” (USA Today). I grew up in Austinburg, a historic neighborhood on Covington’s east side that stretches from 17th to 21st streets, next to the Wallace Woods and Lavassor Park neighborhoods. This is where I met my best friends growing up. I attended Sixth District Elementary, Holmes Junior High School, Holmes Senior High School and Chapman CTC, and spent my Saturdays and Sundays at St. Benedict’s Cathedral and Eastside Church of the Nazerine. I am truly the product of Covington’s great education and moral instruction systems.

You cannot know me without knowing where and how I grew up - from fishing on the banks of the Licking River to watching the WEBN Labor Day fireworks each year on the Ohio River, this place gave me the perspective that I have on life, which I’ve found can be radically different from the hordes of people “growing up in the ‘burbs” these days. I did not have anything handed to me and I had to work my butt off to get where I am today. I had to support myself financially by age 15 and would have been working since I was 12 if child labor laws didn’t forbid it.

My branch of the Feeney Family immigrated from County Sligo, Ireland to New Jersey in the early 1900s. I think I’ve found most of my long-lost family members who stayed in Ireland or immigrated to England, but if you think you’re one of these get in touch! On my mother’s side I’m the descendant of Appalachia’s earliest pioneers. You can read about her youth in the farmland of Grant County, KY and how she tried to teach me those same lessons in the city in “Jack in the City”, the book accompanying the play by the same name that we performed in during the 1990s.