My professional life has never followed a particularly straight line.

For more than two decades, I’ve been immersed in the world of handpans—as a tuner, maker, designer, teacher, and eventually inventor. I founded Xenith Handpans in 2013 and have spent much of my career exploring how these instruments can be built better, tuned more precisely, and pushed in new directions.

But handpans are only one branch of the tree.

I studied mathematics and secondary education at UC San Diego, ran a private math tutoring business, worked as a music director at a camp for children with serious medical conditions, founded a nonprofit, and have served my local community in public office.

These days, I also write—professionally, personally, and occasionally for publication.

The common thread is curiosity. Give me something interesting to understand, build, improve, or communicate and I’m probably going to disappear down the rabbit hole.

I like the space where craftsmanship and problem-solving overlap.

My work with handpans has led me through acoustics, metallurgy, manufacturing, tooling, industrial design, and a considerable amount of trial and error. Along the way, I became a multiple International patented inventor.

I’m happiest when an idea eventually becomes a physical thing that works.

That instinct extends well beyond instruments. I repair things, modify things, build things, and occasionally take perfectly functional things apart because I’m convinced they could function slightly better.

Results vary.

Community service has been another recurring thread in my life.

I helped rebuild the music program at The Painted Turtle, later founded Handpan Community United, and have served as a trustee for the Sebastopol Union School District.

I’ve helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for causes and organizations I believe in, but the part that matters most to me is much simpler: participating in the communities I belong to rather than merely living alongside them.

Writing has become another way I explore.

Sometimes I write from expertise—about handpans, acoustics, making, and a craft I’ve spent much of my adult life practicing.

Sometimes I write essays about community and everyday life.

And sometimes I write much closer to the bone: about relationships, sex, shame, healing, desire, identity, and the complicated business of being human.

Different subjects. Same impulse.

I’m trying to understand something.

I’m an avid lap swimmer and occasional lifeguard. I love being outside and disappear into nature whenever circumstances allow.

I repair antique mechanical clocks, which is an objectively questionable hobby for someone already prone to obsessing over complicated mechanical systems.

I’m a father of two girls, which is easily the most important thing I do.

I love adventures, strange projects, good conversations, learning things I have absolutely no practical reason to learn, and people who are genuinely enthusiastic about something.

Father. Partner. Maker. Writer. Inventor. Lifeguard. Community member. Relentless explorer.

I make instruments.
I make things work.
I write about things I’m trying to understand.
I swim back and forth more times than seems reasonable.

And I remain convinced that a love affair with knowledge never ends in heartache.