From Maui to New England

I grew up in Hawaii with no path to aviation. I built one anyway.

First intro flight at Kahului Airport, 2018

Where it Started

I took my first intro flight in a C172SP out of Kahului Airport in 2018. I knew right away what I wanted to do.

I didn't grow up around airplanes. Nobody in my family flew. I moved to New England and worked my way into a software engineering career because it was the only path I could see that would eventually let me afford flight training.

Private pilot checkride, RV-12 at Portsmouth International

First Solo - First Checkride

My first solo was in the RV-12 out of Portsmouth International in February 2024. That summer I passed my private checkride in 50 hours.

Flying the Cirrus SR20

Everything After

From there I earned my instrument rating, high-performance endorsement, AGI, IGI, and Part 107. I joined Skyhaven Flying Club and flew the Cessna 172 and Cirrus SR20 through every season New England has to offer.

Seaplane rating add-on

Seaplane, Commercial, & Beyond

I earned my single-engine sea add-on, then completed an accelerated commercial program at Laconia Flight Academy in 43 days. Now I'm finishing my CFI at Laconia, with plans to pursue the CFII after that.

Sharing a flight over New England

Why I Fly

Soon after I started taking passengers up over New England, I realized the best part of aviation isn't flying. It's showing someone else what it looks like from up there. That's when I decided to instruct.

Aviation is where I want to be. The tech background didn't go away — it just found a better flight deck.

The Tech Side

Five years as a software engineer, including two at Jeppesen ForeFlight.

At ForeFlight, I built the content delivery system, contributed on the community events feature, and designed the server-side education video layer for the mobile app. Before that I built data pipelines and mentored engineering teams at Arkatechture, and developed full-stack web applications at Frontdesk.

That background translates more than you'd expect. Documentation, standardization, training records, scheduling systems, managing technical complexity under pressure — I did all of that before I ever sat in the left seat. Now I bring it to the flight deck.

Night flight over New England

Outside the Flight Deck

I live in New Hampshire with my wife and our daughter. When I'm not flying I'm usually building something — I wrote the software that generated this website. I'm a member of AOPA, the Skyhaven Flying Club, and a subscriber to every aviation podcast I can find. Here's my 2025 ForeFlight Recap.