Career Aspirations:

My long-term career goals are more solid than they were 2 years ago, but they're still expanding. Currently, my desired trajectory is to become a financial analyst where I'm able to hone my financial skills and eventually implement them in a startup that I join.

Entrepreneurship has been a more recent addition to my ambitions, in that I didn't realize I wanted it until I went to an info session for the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship the week before I started at UW.

Since having added Entrepreneurship to my aspirations, I've Co-Founded two startups in varying industries. One is JailBird Games, a card game publishing company that I started in the Creating a Company course while in school. The other business, Arc Security, is a real-estate agent-focused personal security company working on an App to help in peace of mind for real estate agents across the industry. Both companies have gone through the Creating a Company course, and are both still running. If you'd like to learn more about them, feel free to visit the Ventures page of this site!

How I Got into Business:

Business has been something I was surrounded by since I was young. My mom worked as a supervising manager at McDonalds (then shifted to accounting) and my dad has been an executive in the Hospitality industry for over a decade now.

Aside from environmental motivations, my personal interest in it started rearing its head around the time I started high school. I never was very fond of reading books, but one medium I always was willing to spend hours reading was articles. Specifically, I enjoyed reading articles from the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. The content generally consisted of business activities, such as acquisitions, innovations, and IPOs.

Learning about companies was somewhat of a hobby of mine, where I liked to go through all the big-name companies' Wikipedia pages to find what their Market Capitalizations were. These facts always intrigued me, and being the type who loves to spread knowledge to others, I often shared my discoveries.

From then on, I realized I wanted to major in / study Business Administration. During my first two years of high school, I didn't really have the chance to pursue anything academically that would further this goal. In the summer before Junior year though, I decided I wanted to leave the traditional high school experience and participate in the Running Start program.

The Running Start program allowed me to pursue an Associate's Degree in Business Administration while simultaneously fulfilling my high school graduation requirements. I wasn't quite fond of staying in high school given the drama that comes with being around other teenagers, so I managed just fine in the new environment.

This trajectory would eventually lead me to being admitted to my dream school, the University of Washington, where I was granted direct admission to the Foster School of Business.

Personal Life:

I was born and raised in the Portland OR / Vancouver WA metro area, so I'm very much a fan of the Pacific Northwest.

My family came here from Germany after having fled the war in then-Yugoslavia (now Bosnia). My father never went to college and my mother only recently completed her degree, but they've still managed to find success and provide me a fulfilling childhood. I owe all my personal success, professional and personal, to them. I wouldn't be the person I am it if weren't for them, so I am eternally grateful and try my best to make them proud.

Hobbies:

I enjoy a variety of activities. Having grown up in the PNW, I very much enjoy hiking. I've done a hike in the Redwood forests in Northern California, as well as one at Mount McCausland to the east of Seattle. The hikes I frequent the most, however, are Dog Mountain and Hamilton Mountain, both just to the east of Vancouver, WA.

My biggest time-sink though, is Video Games. I primarily play open world games as I very much enjoy the freedoms that come with it. They allow you to explore and complete the story at your own pace, rather than forcing you down a linear path that has very minimal flexibility. The current games that I'm playing are:

• Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Breakpoint
• The Crew 2
• Far Cry 6
• Grand Theft Auto V
• No Man's Sky

I am open to non-open world games, such as First Person Shooters (Call of Duty + Battlefield come to mind first), but I don't play those as often.

I play on PlayStation, so if you're ever interested in playing together feel free to reach out! I could always use some more gaming friends.

Another hobby I have that I only recently picked up again is Lego. When I was younger, I constantly built them. So much so that my dad advocated I become an engineer. I actually looked into that when I started high school, but ultimately chose business as I enjoyed that field much more.

As of recent I've only built one Lego set, linked here. However, I have two in the works, both being of the Technic variety.