I currently own and am the president of Web Ascender, a web development and internet marketing company in Mid-Michigan. Web Ascender was formed in 2005 by Kevin Southworth and Ryan Doom; we develop on and evangelize the Microsoft platform. I currently have my MCP, MCAD and have one last test for my MCSD. I attended Michigan State University where I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the MSU College of Engineering.
My background with computers is long and diverse. We always had a computer in my home growing up. The first was the apple IIe which I was only old enough to play games on. I didn’t really start getting into computers until Windows 3.1, which was primarily to use Photofinish to do art work and a little Word processing. In my younger years I wanted to be a comic book illustrator which had me sketching a lot plus doing a lot of digital art with the computer. In 1995 we were the first home in my neighborhood to get an internet connection and I built my first website using notepad and Photofinish for the artwork. 1995 was also the first year I started programming. My high school not only offered AP computers but programming in Pascal was offered even for freshman. Through high school I built websites for friends and family as well as started building some C++ programs my senior year. Once I started at Michigan State my computer programming experience exploded… I got 2 summer internships at Neoworx in Ohio where I did ASP and MS Access programming my first year and MFC C++ my second year. This internship was critical for me, after these two summers I had enough experience developing for the web and the desktop to build anything my heart desired. During the school year I worked as a UNIX sys admin and web master for the Computer Science and Engineering department and spent much of my free time making Flash, MFC, PHP and e-commerce applications. In 2001 I launched www.proseriesgolf.com which is 95% the same code that was originally shipped expect for a security patch or two after learning more about SQL injection attacks.
The summer of my junior year I got a job with an East Lansing IT consulting company to do .NET development because I had already been playing with the VS2003 betas. This is where I got a lot more Microsoft development experience as well as plenty of exposure to working with clients. I consulted, developed, managed and sold many custom .NET solutions for over 4 years before leaving to start my own company.
At Web Ascender an average day consists of: a leisurely morning read then some writing, meeting with clients and prospects, designing front ends in (Fireworks, HTML, CSS, JS), programming back ends (.NET/SQL Server), writing proposals, work orders, invoicing and accounting.
My extracurricular business activities include Toastmasters International, GLUGnet, LINC, Lansing Chamber of Commerce functions, and a handful of other social and business groups.
My leisure activities include: Volleyball, Soccer, Motorcycles, Snowboarding, Wakeboarding, Biking, Canoeing, Reading, Writing and on occasion Yoga & Martial Arts.
I currently live in East Lansing with my girlfriend Alison.
I currently own and am the president of Web Ascender, a web development and internet marketing company in Mid-Michigan. Web Ascender was formed in 2005 by Kevin Southworth and Ryan Doom; we develop on and evangelize the Microsoft platform. I currently have my MCP, MCAD and have one last test for my MCSD. I attended Michigan State University where I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the MSU College of Engineering.
My background with computers is long and diverse. We always had a computer in my home growing up. The first was the apple IIe which I was only old enough to play games on. I didn’t really start getting into computers until Windows 3.1, which was primarily to use Photofinish to do art work and a little Word processing. In my younger years I wanted to be a comic book illustrator which had me sketching a lot plus doing a lot of digital art with the computer. In 1995 we were the first home in my neighborhood to get an internet connection and I built my first website using notepad and Photofinish for the artwork. 1995 was also the first year I started programming. My high school not only offered AP computers but programming in Pascal was offered even for freshman. Through high school I built websites for friends and family as well as started building some C++ programs my senior year. Once I started at Michigan State my computer programming experience exploded… I got 2 summer internships at Neoworx in Ohio where I did ASP and MS Access programming my first year and MFC C++ my second year. This internship was critical for me, after these two summers I had enough experience developing for the web and the desktop to build anything my heart desired. During the school year I worked as a UNIX sys admin and web master for the Computer Science and Engineering department and spent much of my free time making Flash, MFC, PHP and e-commerce applications. In 2001 I launched www.proseriesgolf.com which is 95% the same code that was originally shipped expect for a security patch or two after learning more about SQL injection attacks.
The summer of my junior year I got a job with an East Lansing IT consulting company to do .NET development because I had already been playing with the VS2003 betas. This is where I got a lot more Microsoft development experience as well as plenty of exposure to working with clients. I consulted, developed, managed and sold many custom .NET solutions for over 4 years before leaving to start my own company.
At Web Ascender an average day consists of: a leisurely morning read then some writing, meeting with clients and prospects, designing front ends in (Fireworks, HTML, CSS, JS), programming back ends (.NET/SQL Server), writing proposals, work orders, invoicing and accounting.
My extracurricular business activities include Toastmasters International, GLUGnet, LINC, Lansing Chamber of Commerce functions, and a handful of other social and business groups.
My leisure activities include: Volleyball, Soccer, Motorcycles, Snowboarding, Wakeboarding, Biking, Canoeing, Reading, Writing and on occasion Yoga & Martial Arts.
I currently live in East Lansing with my girlfriend Alison.