Who is Connor?

My story starts as an only child with vast amounts of curiosity living in the suburbs of Chicago. I spent my formative years around adults, since my parents & family were inherently social people. I used to make everyone tell me stories about their life as a kid. I was enamored by life itself. I loved watching tv & listening to music for that very reason too. It wasn't to pass the time, it was to learn & get lost in stories about life. I also spent a lot of time daydreaming as a kid (as an only child you have to get really creative sometimes).

I think this is why I am the way I am today. Maybe I’m romanticizing things a bit but…. that really was how I spent a lot of time. I wasn’t just isolated living in make believe as a kid though, I did have friends. I was pretty active with sports, basketball being the primary one that stuck throughout my life.

With my curiosity about life, no one thing ever really did it for me though. I would say I perfectly fit into that jack of all trades, master of none archetype & I wouldn’t trade it for the world. It continues to hold true & keeps all my cups filled in life.

I was always a little bit of an outsider wherever I was. I had this nerdy side, this wild child side, this athletic side, this goofy side. It was complex to me & led to me feeling really lost at moments. Depending on the setting, no one could guess I had these other parts to me. I have learned to balance this out & just show up as myself in all places now.

I worked in hospitality for 6 years while in high school & college. This really continued to feed my need for meeting different people & hearing different stories. It also fed my itch for working in a fast paced environment.

Ultimately, this all led up to me having a career path at startups in SF. Bartending or working a busy night really helped prepare my nervous system for what a start up would be like. I came equipped. I loved getting to be so close to the thing that was being built. It felt meaningful & impactful. I wanted to know everything. At the startups I worked at I loved knowing how things worked outside of just being a software engineer. I could have kept my head down & worked on what I needed to, but I didn’t. I started out as a new grad software engineer & within 3.5 years was leading & managing the product engineering team.

This then led to me eventually wanting to learn more about product so I pivoted to being a founding engineer at a startup that focused on software for commercial cleaning companies. I was able to talk to real people around the country & understand what they wanted & how they wanted to interact with technology in a way that was complementary to their day-to-day. It brought out my creative side of getting to come up with solutions, design software & then see how it was received. Now I’m continuing on that path of building products.

Outside of work, I like to travel & learn about other cultures & places. I enjoy being by water. I love music (experiencing it & learning about the history of it). Unfortunately I am not musically inclined myself. It feels very Rick Rubin-esque. No technical music skills but god damn I know how to listen. Although, I did have a quick stint playing the saxophone in middle school. I love the small moments in life. I am queer. I love an aperol spritz. I still love to play basketball. I love to spend time with my friends. I like to ski. I have a bernedoodle named Ferris.

The story is still being written… but one thing about me that is for sure… is you will never be able to put me in a box. I am just Connor.