I didn't decide to become a data analyst. I realized I already was one. After years of running my own e-commerce businesses, I looked back at everything I'd been doing: tracking KPIs, digging into customer behavior, figuring out why something worked and something else did not. It clicked. This was the work I actually loved.

I'm stubborn about getting to the real answer, not just the comfortable one. I look for patterns other people walk past, and I care just as much about communicating what I found as I do about finding it. An insight nobody understands is just noise.

When I'm not in the data, I'm probably deep in a record collection somewhere between Black Sabbath and Fleetwood Mac, running a vendor event for small subculture businesses, or hot-gluing something onto a sticker. I built three businesses out of the same communities I belong to. That's not a side note — it's why I understand niche audiences, scrappy operations, and why the numbers behind a small business actually matter.

I also use AI as a tool, deliberately, the same way I'd use any other. This site was built with AI assistance, but every decision about what it says, how it looks, and what to keep or throw out was mine. Knowing how to work with AI critically is part of the job now. I'd rather be honest about that than pretend otherwise.