I am currently working as the Co-founder and Partnerships Director for Citizinvestor - a crowdfunding platform for local government projects. This latest startup venture of my own pits me right in the middle of the “Gov 2.0” movement with other talented entrepreneurs looking to “disrupt” government through technology. As Co-founder and Partnerships Director at Citizinvestor, I am responsible for securing partnerships with local government entities and marketing projects posted to our platform to citizens in our partner municipalities.

Most recently, I served as the Client Director at Engage - deemed a “mega-interactive agency” by Mashable. Not sure about that designation, but hey, I’ll take it. I split my time at Engage across three main buckets of responsibility: high-level client service, leading the agency’s business development efforts and managing the Client Division of the agency. One of the things I am most proud of during my tenure at Engage is the fact that in my first year at the agency, I surpassed my revenue goal for new business by 118%, accounting for more than 20% of the agency's revenue in that time period. But I am most proud of the incredible roster of clients we were able to serve during my time there. I have the privilege of leading a team of talented Client Strategists who worked day-in, day-out with some of the most premier brands in the world, including Google, NCAA Men’s Hockey, Consumer Electronics Association, The Heritage Foundation, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Tim Pawlenty and Newt Gingrich. Not a bad gig, right?

Before I joined the team at Engage, I ran my own online communications firm named Direct Media Strategies. While on my own, I had the opportunity to work hands-on with some amazing clients including Boeing, Nathan Deal for Governor, Hospital Corporation of America and BlueAnt Wireless. While at DMS, Patrick Ruffini and Mindy Finn recruited me to contract with Engage on the Voting Information Project (VIP) - an initiative of the Pew Center on the States, Google and Microsoft. Little did I know that I would be heavily focused on the VIP for more than two years and the project would be the thing that would lead me to join Engage full-time. I was responsible for working with Secretaries of State and local election officials to try to convince them to open up their polling place location data so that Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Foursquare and our other partners can build applications on top of the data set, helping more voters find where to go to vote. Sounds like an easy sell, right? It’s not. But I loved the challenge of working on such a non-partisan issue to make elections better through technology.

Because of the data made available through the Voting Information Project, I was able to bring an idea that started with a tweet to life and into one of my favorite projects I have ever worked on. In the summer of 2010, I first tweeted the idea that Foursquare should create an “I Voted” badge that voters could unlock when they checked-in to their polling place location on Election Day. This would obviously model the “I Voted” stickers that voters have received at polling place locations for decades. Seeing the reaction from my initial tweet, I started a Twitter petition for the effort, which was ultimately signed by more than 550 people, reaching millions of individuals on Twitter. The idea became a reality on Election Day 2010 with more than 75,000 Foursquare users unlocking the “I Voted” badge at their polling place. This was a big moment for me. This was the first time I truly grasped the power the Internet held in leveling the playing field for great ideas to take root and spread. It was an incredibly empowering experience.

While I was finishing up school at Florida State University, I was working three jobs. The first was playing piano at a place called Café Cabernet, the second was interning at the Republican Party of Florida and the third was waking up at 5:30 in the morning to aggregate political news articles for a website called SayfieReview.com. As I was finishing up my degree in April of 2008, the Republican Party of Florida offered me a job to move to Volusia County, Florida to be a field staffer for John McCain. As much as I loved John McCain, I saw the writing on the wall and knew this wasn’t a fight I wanted to lose. So I called up Justin Sayfie, my boss at my part-time gig at SayfieReview.com, and told him that he should hire me full-time as the site’s first Executive Editor to really focus on turning his niche news aggregation site into a successful online business. He agreed, and a few days later I was in one of my favorite jobs I’ve ever had.

Anyone who works in Florida politics or journalism will tell you that SayfieReview.com is a staple in Florida politics. During my time at Sayfie Media, SayfieReview.com was twice voted the Best Florida Political Blog by the Washington Post’s readers. We even won ITFlorida’s first-ever Excellence in Web 2.0 Award. The site is now the most widely read political publication in the State of Florida, read by every living Governor of the State.

My eighth grade American History teacher was fired halfway through the school year. I don’t remember her at all, but the guy my school hired to replace her set the course for the rest of my career.

That guy’s name was Mark Sharpe. Mark was a three-time congressional candidate who came closer than any Republican ever had or ever would to being elected to Florida’s 11th congressional district - a seat no Republican has held since the seat was created in 1963. He took over our American History class in the middle of the Republican presidential primary season of 2000 and immediately split the class into teams to “work on” the respective campaigns. I was on Team McCain. Ironically, 8 years later, Mark and I would fly to New Hampshire to work for Senator McCain and witness his primary victory over Mitt Romney.

But that’s not important. What is important is that this is the moment I got hooked on politics and government. I was one of those weird kids who knew exactly roughly what he wanted to do in the eighth grade and never rarely looked back.

Mark ended up giving me my first job managing his campaign for Hillsborough County Commissioner in 2004. I was 17 when I took the job and Mark was a crazy man to give me such responsibility. The seat represented well over a million people and the (D) to (R) voter registration disadvantage was not insignificant. But somehow we pulled it off and Mark was finally elected to public office. He remains one of my closest mentors and friends today.

After winning the campaign, I made my way to Florida State University where I had planned to study political science and music. I chose FSU because, as an aspiring politician, it made sense to be in the state Capitol where I could land premier internships. And as an aspiring musician, it was nice to have the #3 music school in the country just miles away from home. While I loved Florida State's music program, I quickly realized that being a vocal major wasn't going to make me much money, so I quickly dropped that major. I also quickly decided to drop political science to focus on public relations, what I deemed to be the more practical side of learning how to communicate effectively in political campaigns.

In 2006, I took a semester off to work at The White House drafting political briefings for the President of the United States and countless surrogates. This is where I learned how to write. This is also where I learned how to tie a tie. No joke. Literally learned in the West Wing. The stories from The White House are endless and will make for a great chapter in my book someday.

I came back to Florida State in 2007 to finish my degree in public relations, but the real reason I came back was to begin dating my now wife, Kara.

I now live in Tampa, Florida which has been home to my family for six generations. I ended up marrying Kara in 2009 and have spent every opportunity since then traveling the world together. Better get it in before kids come along! Kara is truly the love of my life and I spend every minute I can with her.

One of the greatest honors of my professional life was being selected as a Google Fellow at the Personal Democracy Forum in 2010 for my work at the intersection of politics, government and technology.

In 2011, I was named one of Florida’s “25 Rising Political Stars” by the News Service of Florida, an honor for someone who loves his home state as much as I do.

But perhaps the most humbling accolade is when I am asked to speak in boardrooms and classrooms. Over the past few years, I have had the honor to speak on the topics of technology, politics, government, media and the crossroads of the four at TEDx, The Personal Democracy Forum, The Poynter Institute, CPAC, CampaignTech, DC Week and the Florida Government Technology Conference. I serve as a regular guest lecturer at The University of Florida and The University of South Florida, trying to inspire the same passion in students as someone did for me many years ago.