I grew up in the rural Mississippi River valley town of Port Byron, Illinois and then moved to Mount Vernon, Iowa for college. After that, work brought me to Des Moines, Iowa, where I've lived for the past 21.56 years.

I've also had a few apartments in Chicago, consider it another home, and try to get back there as often as possible.

I've been married to my incredible college girlfriend, Kari (Reynolds) Brooks for 19.16 years. Together, we've had a couple houses and a few dogs: Ninja, Garth Brooks, Benny the Butthole, and our newest, Durby.

I graduated from Riverdale High School of Port Byron in 1999, got my first computer, and then went on to Cornell College, where I graduated in 2003 with a degree in Computer Science.

My early jobs consisted of pizza places and hardware stores. In college, I became sponsored by an awesome shoe company and got really into web dev, sys admin, and technology in general.

After school, I took a job writing research software for bio-chemistry scientists at Pioneer Hi-Bred International.

Eventually, the corporate development environment became boring so I spent some time as a Software Engineer for a small web development company called Red 5 Interactive and then a Senior Application Engineer for an awesome little San Francisco based startup named Dipity.

After all of that, I spent 16 months as the lead engineer of voter contact and protection at Obama For America, where I built software with a team of baller engineers to power President Obama's 2012 campaign.

The Obama campaign led me and a few of my colleagues to build a company that would eventually be acquired by PayPal. While at PayPal, I worked with a bunch of awesome folks to build mobile commerce and payment products (I mostly worked on Venmo ).

After nearly 7 years at PayPal I decided to take a much needed work sabbatical and spent 6 months hanging out.

I'm now working for web security startup, Panther labs.

More info and a portfolio available at broox.dev.

Music is a huge part of my life. I've often got headphones on while out by myself, music is constantly playing at home, and throwing vinyl on the turntable is a weekend morning ritual.

As for styles, I love anything that surprises me or pushes mass-circulated norms... but for the most-part I'm into hip hop, electronic, dance, punk, metal, hood rap, hard rock, horrorcore, downtempo, classic rock, and even some pop. I guess the only things I'm not into are pop-country, and folky "dave" stuff.

I'm also a huge fan of music festivals and live shows. Check out this list of shows I've been to.

Aside from watching movies and playing video games (neither of which I do very often anymore), TV has never really been a part of my life. After living together for 12 years, Kari and I bought our first television to watch the Cubs win the World Series. We now have 2 TVs in our home, and another in the garage. 😱😱😱

When I turn the TV on, it's mostly to display photos or watch music videos, youtube, hockey, baseball, Iowa Hawkeye football, or an occasional movie.

Kari's books dominate the storage and most nooks/crannies of our house. I really hate reading books; it's not good for my A.D.D. and I feel like most books are as much of a waste of time as television. 😉

I do still love to learn though, and spend a lot of time reading about things on the internets. I just prefer my information in smaller doses.

I love to travel! So far, I've been to 18 countries, 37 of the 50 United States, 2 U.S. islands, and Washington DC.

Since a young boy, I've loved automobiles. For me, they've always been as much about design, engineering, fun and freedom as they are about transportation. My first vehicle was a teal 1963 Chevy II Nova that I bought with money that I'd saved up from mowing lawns. My dad and I spent a year restoring it, and every car that I've owned since has been a journey of modifications and adventures.

My favorite vehicles to drive are sports cars and small off-road SUVs. I just get so much joy from whipping around in something quick and nimble.

I've driven in 8 countries, over half of the United States, and once brought a car home from Germany.

Aside from the Nova, I've also had a Toyota Celica, Eagle Talon, Ford Lightning, Volkswagen GTI, BMW M4, Jeep Wrangler, and a Ford Bronco.

I've never owned a vehicle with more than 2 doors.

Hacking, building things, automating my home, taking photos, riding bikes, getting tattoos, golfing, playing broomball, playing hockey, practicing yoga, homebrewing, camping, making videos, auto tuning, skateboarding, inline skating, snowboarding, snowskating, sliding on soap shoes, paintballing, having fun, chilling with friends, looking at girls, listening to loud music, playing with technology, breaking things, going out, eating foooood, drinking beer, playing dress up, and being generally crazy.