I'm a community-based economic development professional in the City of Birmingham currently working on the Birmingham Civil Rights District Development Project, specifically assisting legacy businesses and catalyzing the next generation of enterprises and equitable development for the Historic 4th Avenue Business District, one of the few intact and remaining Jim Crow era African-American commercial corridors in the United States. An economics graduate of the UAB Collat School of Business, I am dedicated to the sustainable betterment of communities through the vehicles of research and evidence-based, creative, and ground-up programs. I carry the no-nonsense sensibilities of the private sector into the public sector, having worked in the private sector as an office manager, a small business financial analyst, and having co-founded a live music entertainment band.
After completing a few projects, I plan to continue my graduate studies in developmental economics and law.
During my brief but eventful stint on the pale blue dot, I've had the pleasure of living in five different cities, four different states, and never staying one place more than five years during childhood. As a result, I've developed a patient but cosmopolitan outlook on us.
I've been one of two Black kids in the entire grade, the new kid in an all Black private Christian school, just a kid in an ethnically and economically diverse school, and the smart Black kid in a rural school. I've both witnessed and been a partaker in the privilege of suburban neighborhoods and the disenfranchisement of urban hoods.
More than that, I've seen healing. I've seen progress. I've seen zig-zag progress. I've seen regression. I've seen brokenness. I've seen injustice. I've seen grace.
It is because I have seen as the Star Wars character Maz Kanata said, "the same eyes in different people", the same prejudice in the South and the Midwest, the same socioeconomic struggles in poor communities, and the same hopeful, innovative spirit across backgrounds, that I am an optimist.
I believe that the "wicked problems" of our time can be solved with enough data, grit, empathy, and most of all, compassion.
I'm looking forward to it.
After completing a few projects, I plan to continue my graduate studies in developmental economics and law.
During my brief but eventful stint on the pale blue dot, I've had the pleasure of living in five different cities, four different states, and never staying one place more than five years during childhood. As a result, I've developed a patient but cosmopolitan outlook on us.
I've been one of two Black kids in the entire grade, the new kid in an all Black private Christian school, just a kid in an ethnically and economically diverse school, and the smart Black kid in a rural school. I've both witnessed and been a partaker in the privilege of suburban neighborhoods and the disenfranchisement of urban hoods.
More than that, I've seen healing. I've seen progress. I've seen zig-zag progress. I've seen regression. I've seen brokenness. I've seen injustice. I've seen grace.
It is because I have seen as the Star Wars character Maz Kanata said, "the same eyes in different people", the same prejudice in the South and the Midwest, the same socioeconomic struggles in poor communities, and the same hopeful, innovative spirit across backgrounds, that I am an optimist.
I believe that the "wicked problems" of our time can be solved with enough data, grit, empathy, and most of all, compassion.
I'm looking forward to it.
Small Talk Data Points
Though I've lived and attended school in Kalamazoo/Portage, MI, Chicago, IL and Ocean Springs, MS, I claim the place where I was born and finished high school as my hometown: Mobile, AL. I'm a "Bama".
- Age: 27
- City: Birmingham, AL
- Education: UAB Collat School of Business - Economics
- Occupation: Community Economic Development
- Cool facts: Lakers fan (#RIPKobeandGianna), armchair historian, and The Greenlight Band
- Favorite Artist: Stevie Wonder
- Favorite Book: I dislike novels; I prefer academic papers, critical essays and biographies
- Favorite Movie: "Long ago, in a galaxy far, far, away"