Hi, I'm Griffin. I love to create things. I love to restore things. I love to design things. To truly love something, you need to understand the lives of the people who created it and the niche it was made to fill.  It's the creatives, not corporate, that write the history books. When applying the aesthetics and the ideas of the past to today, you need to understand how the wants and needs have changed over time. That's why I love to research and dive deep into my interests and assignments.  Respect for the culture is key, and the best way to show respect is to know the history.

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In my youth, I was always modifying, decorating, or customizing my things. As I grew, I pursued many different hobbies and picked up a myriad of relevant skills. I sewed, dyed, and painted clothes and started a custom clothing business. I learned how to build plastic models which led me into the art of airbrush painting. I built custom skateboards and reinforced them with composites and even won a design award. I got into competitive yoyoing and designed a convenient and cost-effective device to hang it on your belt loop. I took metal shop in high school and fell in love with making sheet metal and wrought iron creations. I combined those skills with my passion for cars and found work as a performance automotive fabricator, where I used my creativity to make elegant solutions for customers’ vehicles. Most recently, my creative outlet has been creating and customizing guitars , effects, and synthesizers. 

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Studying Mechanical Engineering at Oregon State University allowed me to approach my creative projects more methodically and with better planning. I often found myself realizing why earlier projects had gone awry and re-approached them from a different angle. Learning SolidWorks enabled me to visualize my ideas and easily show them to others. This ever-growing toolbox led me to take on more and more ambitious projects.  Even in my less creatively driven career roles, my resourcefulness and ability for lateral thinking have proven valuable. 

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While I was getting my formal education  down in Corvallis, I was getting a different kind of education visiting Portland. The Pacific Northwest thrives on its creative culture, and Portland's biggest strength is its embrace of the weird and unconventional. Nurturing these ideas has led to many unique businesses, public spaces, and organizations that you won't find anywhere else. It is a welcoming environment that makes me feel right at home.

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After college, I went to Texas. I wanted to see what the rest of the country had to offer and see how the ideas and the mentalities were different from the places I had known. I had some positive and negative experiences, but I learned a lot in the process. In the end, all it did was reinforce my love for the Pacific Northwest: The ideas, the way of life, and the approaches taken to both problems and creativity. Today I am back in the place that I love looking for an opportunity that fits my skills and all the experience I have gained along the way. 

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It would be a dream for me to take these skills and my creative drive and put them to work for you. I think you will be blown away at my ability to acquire and retain new information and build on it to innovatively exceed your expectations.