Location: Chattanooga, TN
For Charles, it all started in 1997 growing up in central Florida, when a German exchange student introduced him to building websites. He tinkered with website building for several years, never really thinking about it as a career choice. Eventually, a coordinator in the marketing department at his college campus was looking for student workers to help migrate content to a new CMS. Charles jumped at the opportunity, soon leading him to contract work and then a full-time position. A couple of years in, he proposed they let him research open-source CMS options. This is what led him to Drupal.
Drupal has been a part of Charles’ life since 2013. It peaked his interest because of its large community, dedicated security team, and built-in accessibility features. Early on, he attended his first Drupal meetup, and immediately followed it with Florida DrupalCamp, where he got his first lesson from OSTraining in spinning up a Drupal site. He continued giving back, and later completed a bachelor’s in computer science focused on internet, web, and mobile software technology from Austin Peay State University.
At Four Kitchens, Charles enjoys interfacing with stakeholders to discuss features, information architecture, and workflows. He’s a stickler for following established best practices and standards. He has been involved in site-building and frontend development, but his passion is backend development, as well as automating build processes and establishing workflows.
Outside of work, Charles co-organizes the Chattanooga DrupalCamp. When not focusing on Drupal, Charles enjoys spending time with his family, attending local events, watching movies, or playing video games, primarily in the Open World, FPS, and RTS genres. He and his family still visit Florida to meet up with his parents for a pre-1840 America primitive encampment, where they put away their electronics, dress the part, cook over fire, shoot black powder rifles, practice archery, throw tomahawks and knives, and participate in learning opportunities. Once in a while, he gets motivated to take on a large house project or build something out of wood, and regularly plays basketball to stay active.