I’ve worked with Microsoft data tools for most of my professional life.

I am a trained actor and former improvised comedy performer who fell into IT. I went to college with the intention of becoming a high school English teacher. I discovered improvised comedy… discovered Theatre… and changed my major from English Teaching to a dual major of English and Theatre. After college, I moved from New Hampshire to Minnesota [by bus… don’t do that].

I ended up temping for a few months and then landed an entry-level IT job at The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis… an internationally renowned regional theater which was featured in one of my textbooks from college. Pretty cool. There, I started doing reporting and data extracts and creating Access databases and had a grand time starting to learn SQL and all things Data. Well, not ALL things. But some. Some things Data.

Then the opportunity to join a consulting firm and focus on Microsoft SQL Server came my way and I did that for a while. Ended up blogging, presenting [making great use of my improvised comedy skills], and earned the Microsoft MVP award for Data Platform a couple times. That was pretty cool.

When the opportunity came to learn more about Microsoft Azure, I figured the best place to do that would be at Microsoft. I was an Azure Cloud Solution Architect for a few years before joining the Power BI Customer Advisory Team [my dream job], where I spent 6 years.

Now, I’m looking for what’s next.