Hi! I'm Lisa

I transferred to Utah State University as a Junior in 2014 to finish my bachelor’s degree at USU’s Technical Communication Program.

The program, which at the time was called an English Degree with a Professional and Technical Writing Emphasis, was a unique mix of writing, design, and technology.

Not only was it where I first learned HTML and CSS, but it gave me skills and knowledge that are foundational to everything I’ve done since.

For more about how my background as a Technical Communicator makes me a better developer, check out the About page.

This was my first professional experience as a document designer, beginning as a summer intern and continuing until after graduation. In addition to giving me practical technical writing experience, it helped me refine my skills with software like Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator.

My first fulltime job was at the Arizona Auditor General’s Office, formatting reports in InDesign for publication. I joined the team during an office-wide rebranding campaign and was able to work on redesigning the department’s report templates and create documentation for the changes.

Government life wasn’t for me, however, and I ultimately left to do freelance document design work full time.

After freelancing for several months, I was getting frustrated with my limitations as a designer. I decided to go back to school and take courses in Visual Communication Design.

This also gave me the chance to revisit web development in a classroom again—this time from a designer’s perspective—to really solidify my understanding of semantic HTML and fill in any gaps I had with CSS that I missed the first time.

After going back to school, I was eligible again to participate in Disney’s College Program, and I decided to spend a semester in Florida learning everything I possibly could while working at Disney's Animal Kingdom.

I attended seminars for Communications and Event Operations, head from employees in various business segments of the company, and went on behind the scenes tours of the park, learning how Disney created "magic" for their guests, and applying it to everything I knew about storytelling, branding, writing, and design.

While in Orlando, I also began freelancing, creating websites for new authors who were just starting to launch their brand.

In 2019, I presented what I'd learned at a conference in a class called, “How Disney Parks Create Magic: Creating Emotional Connections in Your Writing.”

In the Fall of 2018, before beginning my first official web development position, I completed Treehouse’s (now defunct) WordPress Development Track. This included courses in Git, Sass, JavaScript (and jQuery), PHP, WordPress template development (including plugins), and Gulp.

At the same time, I also received the Google Analytics Individual Qualification.

My first developer job was at Lucid, a digital marketing agency in Tempe, Arizona. This role was a bit like drinking out of a firehouse—I wore many, many hats, and served as a “translator” of sorts between clients, marketers, contract developers, designers, and content managers.

Working in marketing required shifting my mindset from being solely focused on conveying information to supporting campaigns and achieving marketing goals. It taught me to optimize sites for performance and analytics, how to stay up-to-date on SEO best practices, and to work quickly to make urgent updates or add necessary new features.

A little over a year after I started, Lucid joined with another agency to create Highnoon. This meant I went from a development team of one, to a team of four, and was able to work on larger, multi-developer projects.

When COVID burnout hit, I needed a break from the pace of Agency Life. I took a position at a housing company that provided me the opportunity to learn React development. I developed web applications for internal use using React JS with Typescript and made UX/UI improvements to existing projects.

Ultimately the position wasn’t a great cultural fit, and I took a short break from development to live out my dream of working in a bookstore.

While working on freelance web projects with authors, I had noticed two things: one, most writers (and other creatives) had no idea where to start when it came to creating a website (and ended up spending more money because of it), and two, most viewed “marketing” as a necessary evil.

In 2021, I began teaching “Website 101” classes at conferences with the goal of helping creatives make more informed decisions and feel less overwhelmed going into web projects. These classes go over basics like understanding your users and business goals, creating relevant content, and how hosting, domains, and CMSs work.

HubSpot Academy’s Courses and certifications gave me the opportunity to apply previous education and experience to HubSpot’s methodology.

Certification courses for Growth-Driven Design and Inbound Marketing helped fill in some of the gaps I had on marketing theory, while "CMS For Developers II" strengthened my knowledge on web accessibility and performance.

Seeking a change of scenery, I packed up my car and drove across the country to Burlington, Vermont to work at Mole Street.

This was an exciting opportunity—for the first time I was fully immersed in the HubSpot ecosystem. I also got to work on my largest development team yet, using my accumulative experience to collaborate with web strategists and designers on our team and build custom, pixel-perfect websites from delivered design files and designing additional modules when needed.

Unfortunately, I was laid off due to workforce reduction in May 2022.

After an adventurous summer traveling, I began a new position at another HubSpot partner agency in August, 2023.

While this was similar to my previous role, it gave me an opportunity to build more complex themes with unique modules, using tools like GraphQL and CMS React, and develop for newer features in HubSpot, like programmable emails and custom quote templates.

Whether I was a project lead or developing on a site alone, I prioritized implementing systems that kept projects organized and maintainable with succinct, modular code.

I also spent more time with clients, providing training, project updates, and solutions and estimates—my background in Technical Communication and previous agency experience really helped me to explain technical concepts in a way that was accessible for everyone on the team.

 View Recent HubSpot Work Here

Currently I’m working on building more experience with React (including Next.JS), as well as Jest and Storybook.

I’m also working on some fun CSS challenges, including my CSS Bookshelf project. You can checkout recent updates on Instagram.