Seasonalife's Founding Family
Seasonalife's founding family is a unique blend of very talented individuals. They are the people that have invested their passions and countless hours to help bring this incredible idea to life.
I grew up in Norwich, NY, a small city in the hills of Central New York. There I could simply walk or hop on my bike to get to any of my friends’ houses. It’s a great place to grow up and you enjoy a strong sense of community.
As the youngest of three, I was always considered the “creative one” in the family. After attending Nazareth College of Rochester for Studio Art, I continued on to Rochester Institute of Technology, attaining a B.S. degree in Print Production with a minor in design and typography.
At R.I.T., I became very interested in architecture while taking an American Architecture class. I enjoyed going on tours throughout Rochester observing the different architectural elements and periods of houses and buildings. As a hobby I’d take pictures of friends’ and families’ homes. Then I would replicate the photo as a wood burned plaque and give them as gifts to proudly hang on the wall.
All of these elements combined: my creative abilities, my love of architecture and growing up in a nurturing community have brought me to where I am today - a proud member of the Seasonalife family
Coming from Binghamton, a small city in New York's southern tier, I grew up with an appreciation for historical architecture and the beauty of the changing seasons. When Duane first told me about this project, I was eager to join and help out with its launch.
For as long as I can remember, I've felt a strong draw to media of all kinds. In the 4th grade, I took it upon myself to create a class newspaper, complete with articles, photos, brain teaser games, and computer graphics created with a rudimentary program called "The New Print Shop" and a dot-matrix printer. The project quickly grew to include the entire class as contributors to the newspaper, and was eventually distributed throughout my elementary school.
Two years later, my passion for publishing moved into the digital realm as I began to learn how to code for the web. I spent many hours pouring over HTML and javascript, soaking up every bit of information that I could. Soon afterwards, I began taking on website projects for many local organizations and charities, and quickly found my free time becoming something of a hot commodity.
In high school, I was able to take advantage of my school's robust arts program, known as the Rod Serling School of Fine Arts. There, I studied graphic design, mechanical drawing, and vocal music, earning myself a Fine Arts Major upon graduation.
My high school experience led me to study New Media Publishing, a combination of graphic design, print management, and information technology, at the Rochester Institute of Technology. There, I was able to hone my abilities and gain some real-world experience. Part of this real-world experience included an internship position at Jay, Inc. working directly under Duane Schweitz, Seasonalife's founder. Since then, I've learned much under Duane's direction, and am proud to join him as a member of the Seasonalife family.
I was born and raised in my early years in Yonkers, NY. It wasn't the prettiest place visually, but I couldn't really help that. Shortly after my little sister was born, we moved a little bit north to Somers. This is where I've spent most of my life, growing my interests: art, music, sports, technology. I got into technology very young, mostly by pulling computers apart and putting them back together again. This trend continued into high school where I took classes ranging from engineering, to video editing, to computer programming.
When all was said and done, I decided to go to RIT (Rochester Inst. of Technology) to major in Information Technology. I had fun meeting some new people, one of which I worked with on this project (Matt). When I first started classes I was overwhelmed; I knew there were a few different routes I could go with my program, but I wasn't sure which was right for me. I took some classes in programming, web design, and networking.
My sophomore year I finally realized what path I wanted to take: web development. Web development took the things I liked from web design and programming, and mashed them together into an artistic, practical and fresh entity. I love combining art and technology, which is really what brought me into this project and makes me a proud member of the Seasonalife family.