The Story Behind the Story
How a Former Athlete Opened the Door to CompTIA
It all started two years ago when one of my former Tulsa Youth Rowing Association athletes Caroline Hughes posted a casting call on LinkedIn. She was working with a production team with CompTIA’s Explore channel, looking for professionals in the technology field to share their stories. As both an educator, online rowing coach, and technology innovator, I knew this was the perfect opportunity to show how rowing and technology can change lives.
The next spring in 2024, I heard from the CompTIA production team about coming to Tulsa. They were very interested in telling my story about blending my passions for education, rowing, and technology. The plan was for them to fly in and do a day of filming an interview, and then another day of filming at the river.
From AI Conference Chaos to Tulsa Filming
The only problem was I was due to attend a conference the weekend before the filming. I flew to NYC the week before to attend the Learning and the Brain conference which was centered around AI. The conference was a great time and I learned more about how AI has and is impacting the education sector. I was due to fly back to Tulsa routing through Charlotte on Sunday morning. Around about midnight on Saturday just a few hours before I was scheduled to fly back the next morning, my American Airlines app pinged. Bad luck, my flight had been cancelled. At 2am in the morning, I was on the phone with my wife and had been scheduled on a flight on Monday evening. Certainly a wrench in the plans!
However, thanks to my wife, who was checking the AA website on Sunday morning, she could see that a couple of seats had opened up on the direct flight that evening back to Tulsa! Within a few quick clicks of the app, I was booked on the flight and made it back to Tulsa late Sunday evening.
What followed was a couple of afternoons of shooting with Caroline’s production crew. They were tremendously helpful and had many questions to ask about my passion for rowing, technology, education and life lessons.
Over the next fourteen months, Caroline kept me posted on progress and said that things had turned out well in post production. I was informed that my story would be out soon and I was on pins and needles watching the other great stories released on the CompTIA Explore channel being told by other people and their technology careers.
I write this in September 2025, and the videos have just been released by CompTIA.
At another conference I attended recently, one of the main themes was having the courage to tell your own story. It was encouragement to all attendees to take the bold step and talk about the wins, trials, challenges of life, because if “you don’t tell your story” who else will do it for you?
In my case, I am fortunate that others have done a wonderful job of telling my story (so far). I am grateful to Caroline, her production company, and CompTIA production team for taking an interest in my life’s work. There have been many times when I was working on developing apps like RowingSTEM, Remote Rowing Coach, and Erg Dude and now Erg Dude Galactic RowDown that have been lonely at times. The self-doubt about whether the work you were doing would add value to the life of someone else.
As I say in the video, rowing has been a life-changing experience for me and it can be for others as well.
I wish to thank the CompTIA production team, Holland Hall, the University of Tulsa, and Tulsa Youth Rowing Association for their support in helping me realize a vision that has been a long time in the making. I hope you enjoy the videos, and in turn they inspire you to follow your dreams, or have the courage to start your own journey be that in rowing, technology, education or following your own passions.
