I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Stout with a BFA in Industrial Design, and after a few years in the small appliance industry, I've made my way into footwear!

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I've loved running ever since I was a part of my middle school's track team. I ran sprinting events, hurdled, high jumped and long jumped. I was exposed to the mile after one of my teammates couldn't make their race and I ran for them. It was terrible but a good terrible, yah know? It motivated me to make the switch to distance and go out for cross country in high school.

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Cross country was a life changing experience for me in many ways, and as it began I started to learn about running shoes. I didn't know there were different types of shoes for different types of runners; whether that be a shoe with added arch support, a more cushioned or responsive midsole, etc. I quickly became obsessed with learning everything I could about running shoes.

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The Eastbay magazine came to my parents house every month, even though nobody subscribed to it or ordered from them (which seems to have been a common occurrence for many people). Every morning while eating my two bowls of Lucky Charms (a health icon), I would look at all of the running shoes from every brand and memorize each one. I knew everything there was to know about them, and was able to recommend running shoes to my teammates as a result. I also began working at my local Nike store so I could help even more people get into the shoe that was right for them.

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I loved my time at Nike and found myself analyzing each shoe that came into the store and each shoe I wore. I thought of ways to potentially make them more functional and more efficient. This is when I knew I wanted to work in footwear design.

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Like many people in high school, I was told that there was no money in art and design and that it wasn't a sustainable career choice. Many injuries caused me to take time off of running which sparked my interest in how the human body works. I wanted to prevent my injuries and help others do the same, so I decided to go to school for Physical Therapy.

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After one year, I realized that I wouldn't necessarily be able to focus my attention exclusively on athletes. I still wanted to design running shoes and acknowledged that I wasn't going to pull that off with a Physical Therapy degree, so I changed my major and transferred schools.

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While at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, I took an Industrial Design internship that had a lot of color, material and finish design included. This opened my eyes to a new subset of design and I fell in love with connecting to consumers emotionally through color. My goal is to design innovative and sustainable products to outfit and inspire athletes from all walks of life.