About Me

I am Toby Mackenzie of Northeast Ohio. I am introverted, quiet, shy. I am a web developer.

Places

I have lived in Northeast Ohio my whole life. Places have included Cleveland, Lakewood, Peninsula, Kent, Ravenna, Cuyahoga Falls, and Akron. Accommodations have included houses, dorms, an apartment, and a mobile home. I currently live in a house in Northwest Akron.

Education

I went to pre-school at Tri-C, where my mom worked.

I started grade-school at Lincoln Elementary School, where I spent six years. I went to Horace Mann Middle School for just one year before moving to the Woodridge School District, where I spent the rest of my grade school days.

I then attended Kent State for four and a half years, majoring in Hospitality Management. I also minored in business and took various other courses, including Computer Science, which I really liked. I graduated with a bachelor's degree.

After graduating from Kent, I spent several years working as a line cook. During this time, I was expanding my knowledge of various programming and web languages, and my plans changed from a future in the restaurant industry to a future in the web industry.

Determining that I would need some sort of accreditation or/and experience before jumping into the industry, I began attending Tri-C to see what they would offer me. I stumbled upon the eBusiness Management Program. It gave me a year long internship and a number of computer, business, and web related courses to take. I graduated and earned an associate's degree.

I no longer attend school, but have not stopped learning. The web indusrty continues to expand and evolve. There is more knowledge and technologies and tools out there than any one person can learn and use. I continue to expand my knowledge base and try to keep up with the current trends, tools, and techniques. I read blogs, listen to podcasts, experiment and play, and attend meetups and events.

Occupations

My first job was at the Winking Lizard Tavern, where I worked for almost 10 years. I started as a busser and dishwasher, worked briefly as a host, and ended up in the kitchen working various stations. It was fun at times, but it could be rough, especially in the busy summer.

Losing interest in the restaurant industry, I moved into the industry of one of my hobbies, building websites. Concurrently with my stint at Tri-C, I worked as a web-development intern at RPM International. They are a large sealants and coatings company with many subsidiaries. I worked on some of their company websites as well as a number of charity websites to which they donate hours and hosting. I did front end development as well as some back end development in classic ASP and some database work with SQL Server. It was a large change from the Winking Lizard. I enjoyed working on sites there, especially when some of the more difficult programming or database query problems came up.

I now do contract work for Cogneato, a small web-development firm in Akron. I do front- and back-end development, server maintenance, and other miscellaneous tasks. Read more about my web development career.

Hobbies

Since a young age, I've been interested in computers, and tend to spend a lot of time using them. I like music, both to listen to and to play. I played drums in concert and marching band in grade school, and a set in a rock band for about five years. I now mainly am focused on playing keyboard for my own entertainment. I like reading, movies, and TV. I enjoy a number of outdoor activities, including hiking, running, and cycling. I enjoy sports, especially dodgeball, but I have no one to play them with. I like photography. I have some interest in home design and operation, cars, and many other things.

I like to create things, improve things, learn things, and organize things.