The long version

For about five years, I worked as a lead technician installing and servicing fire alarm life safety systems in commercial buildings. It is not glamorous work, but it does not forgive mistakes. A wiring error or a skipped test does not show up on an inspection report. It shows up when someone cannot find their way out during a fire. I held a NICET Level II certification and FAL and FELB licenses from that work.

In 2021, I decided to change that. I have always had a passion for learning, and I pointed it at a new field. I had no technical background and no degree, just a decision to start over.

I enrolled at Grand Canyon University and earned a Bachelor of Science in Cybersecurity in 2024, graduating Summa Cum Laude. I finished it while working full-time and becoming a first-time father, and I was the first person in my family to graduate with honors. That result means more to me than the credential itself. It reflects the discipline, determination, and curiosity it takes to understand something from start to finish instead of stopping at the surface.

Cybersecurity is broad, but identity and access management is where I wanted to focus. IAM and Identity Governance are both about the same basic question I already understood from fire alarm work, who is allowed to do what, and what happens when that goes wrong. Controlling access and catching a misconfiguration before it becomes an incident is the same kind of care, just in a different building.

Since then, I have been building hands-on labs in Microsoft Entra ID and Active Directory, covering hybrid identity, Conditional Access, Privileged Identity Management, and Identity Governance workflows. I fund the cloud subscriptions for this lab work myself. Each lab is documented the way I would document real work, including what broke and how I found it, not just the finished result.

Outside of work, I spend time with my family, play soccer and cricket, and like challenging myself with additional labs when I have the time.