At the age of 5, I was certain that my life goal was to be a Dentist.  The certainty faded over time, until eventually I realized that Dentistry was not right for me.  Unfortunately, this realization came with Biology degree in hand (thankfully before taking out loans for Dental School).  Shortly after graduating I took up a job working in Medical Management in Buffalo, NY.  I stayed with this job for 8 years while falling into a depressing cycle of work, video games, and scraping snow off my car early in the morning.  Knowing that there were people who loved going to work every day, I began searching for a career that would allow me to apply daily the skills I enjoy most (problem solving and creativity while under pressure).

In 2012 I went back to school to get a degree in Computer Science.  After 5 semesters, I was able to graduate from the University of Buffalo.  2 weeks later I began working for a startup in Atlanta and my life changed.  I found a new sense of purpose and accomplishment as well as success.  My goal is to enable as many people as possible to change their life not only financially, but emotionally.  When you are able to work every day in a job that you love, it no longer feels like work.

Atlanta Technical College (ATC) runs its own Foundation, which allows it to pass on a very large percentage of donations directly to students.  ATC offers over 100 programs for students including 17 Computer Information Systems programs.  An entire semester of tuition is paid for with a donation of $1,335.  ATC's 5 semester Associates Degree in Computer Programming offers students an opportunity to learn some of the most commonly used programming languages today (C++, C#, Java, etc).  My goal is to raise enough money to cover tuition expenses for 5 semesters ($6,675).