Lagniappe
(lan-yap) — Cajun French for "a little something extra."
About Me
The Rest of the Story
I grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana — the heart of Cajun country — where I picked up a deep appreciation for good food, good stories, and figuring things out with whatever you've got on hand. That last part hasn't changed much.
I'm marrying Samantha in September 2026. We met while I was earning my MBA at the University of Denver, juggling three internships, and somehow still finding weekends to go to concerts and snowboard mountains together. She's been along for the ride ever since.
I love to travel. My senior year at UL Lafayette, I was approved to graduate several weeks early — so instead of walking at Commencement, I boarded a flight to India. I spent time in Kolkata volunteering with the Missionaries of Charity, working in homes for the homeless, disabled, and dying, and spending Christmas with children living in the streets. From there, I trekked to Mount Everest Base Camp, where I took a photo in my cap and gown at 17,598 feet. The story was picked up by a local news station in Lafayette — my five minutes of fame.
Outside of work, I'm on a lifelong mission to perfect my gumbo recipe — I'm building a recipe collection below to document the journey. I'm a certified YouTube mechanic, usually found under the hood of my 3rd gen Toyota Tacoma or Audi Q5. I've been playing drums for 20 years, with the hearing damage to prove it. And I try to get outside as much as possible — hiking in the mountains with Samantha, paddling open canoes down whitewater, kayak fishing in a salt marsh, or taking the Tacoma off-road.
The information on this page won't be found on my resume, but it makes up a lot of who I am.
Dev Projects
Personal Builds
Personal projects built to learn new tools or solve real problems. Separate from professional work, but they reflect how I think about building things: start with a real problem, keep the interface clean, and ship it.
Student Loan Payoff Tracker
Full-stack web app for optimizing student loan repayment using the Avalanche method. Features CSV import from Aidvantage, payment advisor with optimal allocation calculator, amortization projections, and what-if scenarios.
Honeymoon Planning
Interactive trip planner for a Croatia & Montenegro honeymoon. Full itinerary builder with day-by-day scheduling, budget tracker with points redemption, research database for restaurants and activities, and a to-do checklist.
Bachelor Trip Planner
Group trip coordination app for planning a bachelor party. Shared itinerary, budget splitting, activity voting, and attendee management.
From the Kitchen
Cajun Recipes
Recipes I've been cooking and refining since I could reach the stove. Mostly Cajun, always from scratch. Some are mine, some have been passed down through generations of Menard and Bernard women who never wrote anything down quite the same way twice.