About

I was born before computers were an everyday household item and when I was in 4th grade I brought my first computer home – an Atari 400  – complete with a BASIC cartridge and a wipe-clean flat keyboard.  This was my first introduction to programming.  I loved it and spent many hours playing around with BASIC (oh sure I played a lot of Donkey Kong, Pac-Man and Missile Command too)!  I knew I wanted to program because I loved everything about creating graphics and games.

When I went to college I fell in love with math and analysis and graduated from college with a degree in Mathematics, pursuing a career in research and statistical analysis.  I wrote macros and used SAS and SPSS  but it wasn’t until I was introduced to HTML at a conference that I realized that web development was something of which I had to be a part.

While I was in graduate school I begged friends to teach me everything they knew about web development and programming.  I was lucky enough to spend Saturdays with a friend and colleague who taught me everything about ASP (which was enough to help launch my career).  I became a Microsoft Certified Professional and landed my first job as a web developer in 1998.  I served as the central web developer for St. Philip’s College in San Antonio.  Part of my job was to help faculty develop hybrid and Internet classes, so I was able to develop true user experiences, going beyond the basic “web page”.  I’ve had the pleasure of using many LMSs and CMSs and providing interactive and comprehensive user and learning experiences.

In 2002, I ventured out and started my own consulting business.  I have developed non-profit, for-profit, and educational web sites, and also provided analysis and optimization strategies, content and marketing strategies, and training. I consulted with small, medium, and large businesses about their web, business and online marketing needs. 

I made my way back to higher education in 2017 where I served as the Digital Technologies Librarian at Trinity University in San Antonio for four and a half years. While there I redeveloped the library’s website and coordinated many of the library’s third party services to create a cohesive user experience. I also supported digital scholarship initiatives by providing training and guidance for a variety of tools.  Not only was I able to help others, but I also participated in a summer grant program with a student mentee in 2020 (yes during COVID and all done remotely) producing an online exhibit for the library’s large montage mural. The site was produced using Omeka – https://mural.coateslibrary.com. 

Most recently I’ve had a chance to branch out into product development. I served as Learning Experience Information Architect in Digital Strategy for the Office of Product and Project Innovation at Southern New Hampshire University where we were charged with creating a new learning management system that embraced a paradigm shift from traditional learning. As part of this team I liaised with a variety of vendors and workgroups to make sure that our curriculum aligned to other colleges, universities and workforce development entities. As part of this I integrated several thousand courses and competencies into Credential Engine using Python to align multiple internal systems to make sure that our information was visible within the Credential Engine system.

I recently served as a Web Developer in the Marketing Department at UT Austin. Collaboratively, I worked on a team of developers where we moved from a project team to a product team creating the first Gutenberg-based WordPress branded and custom upstream at the university. Changing strategy allowed us to move from a reactive to a proactive development process.

If you want to contact me, please fill out the contact form.  If you’d like to see what I’ve been doing the past few years in detail please take a look at my resume and portfolio. I am also on LinkedIn so follow me there!

Cheers and thanks for stopping by!

E. Poff