Meet Aaron

When my application to the Rhode Island School of Design was rejected, I pivoted to the thing I’d been doing for fun and hadn’t thought of as a career: writing code. I joined an educational startup, stayed through five years of turbulence, and found my footing in an industry I hadn’t planned on.

Along the way, I co-founded a photography instruction business with a close friend and taught on-location workshops across the country. We had to close when the 2008 financial crisis hit, but what stayed with me wasn’t the loss of the business, it was the discovery that teaching people to see differently was one of the most satisfying things I had ever done.

That discovery sat in the background for years while I worked my way through each layer of a software career, from engineer to tech lead to manager to director. As the roles grew larger and more complex, the nature of the work shifted. The problems I spent my time on were less and less about code and more and more about how people communicate, make decisions under pressure, and find their footing when the terrain feels unfamiliar.

The specific moment of recognition came when I read The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier. Reading it, I understood at once that coaching was a real discipline with real techniques, and that I had been attempting it for years without knowing what it was or doing it particularly well. That realization sent me to formal coaching training, to more books, and eventually to building a practice around the work I had already been doing by instinct.

When I’m not coaching, you’ll find me with my son, out with my camera, or flying my drone.

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