After listening to Center Director Sharon Dawes speak in a few of my classes during my first year at Rockefeller College, I was very intrigued by the work of CTG. I attended the New York State-Local Internet Gateway Prototype presentation, which encouraged me to get more involved in the information management field and made up my mind that CTG was where I wanted to be.

In May 2003, I earned my bachelors in Public Communications from Buffalo State College. In one class during my last semester there, I worked for the City of Buffalo’s West Side Community Collaborative to develop a campaign that aimed at bringing small businesses and residents back into the West Side of Buffalo. I had already had an interest in public policy, but this project influenced my decision to go to graduate school to earn masters in public policy. I started at Rockefeller College in the fall of 2003 and prior to working for CTG I worked for the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles in both the Budget and Revenue Accounting Offices.

In the immediate future, I would like to apply some of the skills and knowledge I have acquired thus far at CTG towards writing my thesis and completing my graduate degree in May 2005. In the long-term, I would like to learn more about information management and possibly work in the healthcare policy field. I believe that in the coming years, information management and sharing will be crucial to improving the healthcare field.

The great thing about CTG is that most of its principles can be applied to just about anything. The research and problem-solving techniques that are applied here will prepare me for work in either the public or private sector. However, I would like to work in the public sector and continue to work in information management and sharing in the healthcare field. I am also considering earning a Ph.D., sometime in the not-so-distant future.

I’m a big fan of the Olympics and went to the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. When I flew back into Buffalo, I was surprised to see a crowd applauding as I walked out of the airport gate with my Olympics hat on. It turns out that my friends who were picking me up had played a prank and told everyone that I was an Olympic archer.