Who are you, and what do you do? What do you like to do outside of work?

After earning a degree in Physics and spending a year traveling the world, I began an unexpected career in South Florida as a dive officer for a large scientific diving program. I trained students, staff, and faculty not only in safe diving techniques, but also in ways to optimize their efficiency underwater. In the diving world, every minute counts—not only to stay within decompression limitations but also to maintain your breathing gas supply. Teaching divers to collect data efficiently meant they could gather more information in fewer dives, use fewer resources, and ultimately save considerable time and money by reducing the need for repeated trips out on the water. Even small gains in efficiency can lead to significant long-term benefits. Sound familiar to anyone’s keyboard journey? Maximizing efficiency in underwater data collection is achieved through building comfort, confidence, and competence; for about ten years, I specialized in this, leading in-person classes, teaching skills in and under the water, and creating eLearning modules so students could master the theory behind the practice.

I was drawn to technology (with help, I completed my first two PC builds during my time in that job), but being at a computer was only a portion of what I did on a daily basis.

Deep into the pandemic, a personnel shakeup eliminated my opportunities for upward mobility, so I decided to make a career change. With 1,500 logged dives and experience in various specialized projects (like rebreathers, caves, trimix, scooters, and staged decompression, to name a few), I left the diving field and discovered Instructional Design.

Without a dedicated home office, I, like many other founders of promising startups, set up shop in the garage. My work grew, life developed, and so, too, grew the mess all around me. Although my green screen made it seem like my workspace was very nice to everyone else, I was drowning. I spent about three years in the garage before a serious home renovation project allowed me to be promoted into the actual house with a dedicated (and properly air-conditioned) space. Pictured here is how it looked about halfway through my time in the garage.

I didn’t know what instructional design was, but it turned out I had already been doing the work of an instructional designer for years through the hybrid lessons I was designing and developing. I launched my own business to create eLearning experiences for clients across diverse industries. Although it’s less adventurous than my previous career, it offers better pay, flexibility, and exposure to a wide range of people and fields. So far, I’ve designed training for sectors including real estate, banking, finance, healthcare, cybersecurity, and sales, to name a few.

That’s what I do. Who I am is a devoted father of two who loves playing music, cycling, and serving as a church leader. I believe in systems and structure, sometimes get lost in the details, and have a long list of local sports and cultural activities I’d love to try if only I had more time. The saying “what is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right” is woven into my personality beyond the traditional interpretation of the saying. It helps me think outside the box, not care about what society does or thinks, and make my own decisions. Whether it’s dismantling and rebuilding my bed back in my college dorm room to have my desk lofted above the bed, biking two kids to school when everyone else drives their kids by car, using a Voyager instead of a traditional keyboard, or creating a custom chair mount for said keyboard, I challenge norms.

What hardware do you use?

Because I spend so much time at my desk now and because quality work (including video and audio) is part of what I do, I created a sound-treated office in a recent home renovation. My work is completed using a custom-built PC (Ryzen 9 3950X, 64GB RAM, 2x 990 Pro SSDs, NVIDIA GTX1660 Super) displayed on a 43” monitor. The framework of my system is a 6ft wide standing desk I got secondhand for a steal.

I have a mirrorless camera set up for videos and conference calls along with a choice of a dynamic and pencil condenser microphones, with output coming from studio monitors, all run through a Focusrite Scarlett audio interface mounted under the desk. To reduce clutter, my MacBook Air is also mounted under the surface of the desk. All critical components are run through a UPS tucked out of view behind a bookshelf, and files are all backed up on a Synology NAS in another room of the house. Both the UPS and NAS have bailed me out more than once.

I control everything through a combination of my Voyager, a Kensington SlimBlade, an Elgato Stream Deck + and Elgato pedal. I can’t eliminate cables altogether, but an hour or two devoted to cable management helped me achieve an acceptable level of minimalism. Cable management is slightly more complicated for us standing-desk folks; while it’s no cable management masterpiece by any means, I’m satisfied with how everything is routed.

And what software?

For building eLearning experiences, I specialize in Articulate Storyline. To help make the content more engaging, I tap into the Adobe suite (Photoshop, Lightroom, Acrobat, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Aero, and Audition). All of my video, whether a live call or recording, is run through vMix and NDI. The Microsoft Office suite rounds out the rest of the software I regularly rely on. There are others I use, but if I don’t use them at least once a week, I didn’t include them here.

What’s your keyboard setup like? Do you use a custom layout or custom keycaps?

I went directly from a 104+key keyboard to the Voyager. I didn’t want to ease into anything. I heavily considered ditching QWERTY, but ultimately decided I didn’t have good enough reasons to justify it. After a few months of using the Voyager, I find that I get everything done with four layers.

Layer 0: This is my default QWERTY layout with a few key adjustments. The left thumb controls space (left) and tab (right). Holding space activates Layer 1, and holding tab gives me Ctrl. The right thumb controls backspace (right) and enter (left); holding backspace activates Layer 2, while holding enter enables shift. Some other notable tweaks:

• Holding 4 closes a browser tab (Ctrl+F4).
• Tap+hold 4 closes a window (Alt+F4).
• Holding Forward Slash previews selected slides in Storyline.
• Holding Comma acts as Delete.
• Tapping and holding the lower left button puts the computer to sleep.

Layer 1: This layer is dedicated to numbers and symbols. I shifted the layout up to align the 7, 8, and 9 keys with a traditional numpad, placing 0 below 1 and keeping Delete, Period, and Backspace where they are on the base layer (and incidentally also keeping 7, 8, and 9 as they are on the base layer). Otherwise, this layer mostly follows the default setup.

Layer 2: Here I have media, light, and navigation controls. After so many iterations, I’m not sure what’s default versus custom at this point. My Arrow cluster matches a traditional layout: index finger for Left, middle finger for Down, ring finger for Right, all on the home row, and Up is positioned on the middle finger above the down Arrow. Home and End are above the Left and Right Arrows, respectively. The left column on the right hand contains Page Up, Page Down, Wheel Up, and Wheel Down. For lateral scrolling, Wheel Left and Right are set to my right index and middle fingers all the way at the top.

Layer 3: This is my least-used layer, set up for mouse control. It’s the only layer that toggles rather than requiring a key hold. I rarely use it, but it includes all the essential mouse movements, acceleration modes, and wheel controls.

What’s perhaps most unique about my setup isn’t the keyboard layout but my chair mount configuration. Within a month of getting the Voyager, I built a chair mount, which I’m using to type this message.

Here’s how it’s set up: The keyboard is attached to a ZSA tripod mount that’s affixed to a tripod ball head for easy tilting. The tripod head is mounted to an HDPE plate I cut to fit, which then attaches to a VESA mount on each arm of my SecretLab Titan chair. I keep one TRRS cable on the desk and another mounted permanently under the chair (you can see them dangling down in a previous photo – the fact that they hang might bother some, but they’re not in my way and they are always at the ready). I cut the HDPE plate specifically to accommodate a trackball on either side, allowing me to switch hands easily. When not in use, the mount swivels out of the way. The setup works great, and I can move the keyboard from the chair mount to the desk faster than it takes the desk to go from sitting to standing.

What would be your dream setup?

I’m very blessed to say that this is as much of a dream setup as I ever imagined. The only tweaks I have are these:

Trackball Adjustment: I’d like to raise the trackball on the chair mount to match the height of my keyboard. Currently, the tripod mount lifts the Voyager to the perfect level, but the trackball sits directly on the HDPE, which isn’t ideal. Although it works, I end up keeping the trackball on the desk about 75% of the time. I’m considering mounting it on its own tripod to elevate it, then trimming any excess material on the HDPE plate for a tighter, minimal look.

Enhanced Lighting: I’d love to add some LED strips behind the monitor and my audio dampening panel to improve the ambient lighting in the office.

Sound Dampening Improvements: While I’ve invested in soundproofing and sound dampening, including custom-building the big sound panel on the wall behind my chair, there’s still more to be done with sound control. One panel isn’t quite enough for the reverberations, so I plan to make more panels. I’m also working on getting custom imagery printed on acoustically transparent fabric to wrap the panel. For now, I wrapped it in green fabric, allowing me to set the background virtually thanks to vMix. It gets the job done, but I would prefer to have a real image behind me instead of a green screen.