I was born in Indiana the same year the Beatles first came to America. Being a hoosier, I find myself in the company of many great hoosiers: Astronaut Virgil 'Gus' Grissom, David Letterman, Jimmy Hoffa, Cole Porter, Larry Bird, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and the late great actor, James Dean.

My mother, a world-class pianist, and father, a music teacher and choir director, saw to it that I was immersed in the arts at a very early age. I took drum lessons at 3, piano at 4, baritone at 9, clarinet at 10, and so on. I'd also always enjoyed drawing and doodling, which led me to where I am now.

We moved quite a bit and by 12, I had lived in South Bend, IN, Bad Axe, MI, Ubly, MI, Sandusky, MI, Tipton, IN, Michigantown, IN, Frankfort, IN, Kernersville, NC, Allentown, PA, Bethlehem, PA, and Harbor Beach, MI. Sometimes I'll say, "I grew up there," when in reality, what I mean is, "I did some growing up there."

While in Bethlehem, some junior high-school friends and I started a band. I got my first bass guitar for $75 and I tought myself how to play. We were on a steady diet of The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Foghat, Genesis, Ted Nugent, Pink Floyd, Yes, Frank Zappa, Aerosmith, Jimi Hendrix, and Alice Cooper. I soon taught myself guitar and began writing my own songs.

I went to college as a music ed major, but rock and roll wasn't part of the curriculum, so I moved away from home and joined a band with a high-school chum. For the next 10 years, I played the Philly and Wilmington club scene in one band or another, culminating in my own band, Love Bomb (later renamed Bliss). With Love Bomb, I had the opportunity to work with and record an album with Phil Nicolo, grammy award-winning producer. I also spent that decade designing posters, album covers, flyers, and every kind of collateral you can imagine to help promote the bands.

After Love Bomb dissolved, I turned my attention full-time to graphic design and designing for the internet. I started my own company, Foster Graphics, in early 1995, the same year I married my wife, Krista.

After four very successful years, I took a full-time position with one of my then-clients, SCT. I remained there for three years as their lead User Interface and Usability specialist until company downsizing afforded me the opportunity to move to Phoenix, AZ. There I worked with a friend to get a new start-up, The r-Smart Group, off the ground.

I joined Go Daddy Software as a Sr. UI Analyst and I redesigned their customer-facing domain name control center.

After a year with Go Daddy, family issues caused us to move back to Pennsylvania. I took a gig with Refinery, Inc. as Sr. User Experience Architect. I designed consumer and doctor sites for many Merck pharmaceutical products.

In early 2007, an opportunity I couldn't refuse led me to Wolters Kluwer Health. As Director of User Experience, I redesigned the company's electronic medical journal platform, seeing over 270 journals and trade publications migrated to the new platform.

All along the way, I have been honing my skills as a UI designer, information architect, usability specialist, web designer, and graphic designer. Since '95 I've gained expert experience in Photoshop™, Freehand™, Visio™, HTML, CSS, and more. I've used different processes, from RUP to Agile, and mastered develop artifacts like use cases, wireframes, storyboards, and prototypes.

I've also had three beautiful children with my wife of nearly fifteen years. I've been writing screenplays. I have four completed and three more in serious development. I've been writing a book that is more than half-way complete. I still dabble in music. My wife and I have a patent-pending invention. We dream of buying an RV and touring the countryside.

Why does all this matter? I recently read a cool little book by James Young called, "A Technique for Producing Ideas." Young, a virtual god in the advertising industry, suggests that the most important part of great idea making is having the raw data to recombinate into new patterns. That recombination of raw data is what leads to great ideas. If there's anything I've got, it's raw data. My life has been full of varied experiences from the great to the mundane. But all of it plays into the act of creating great ideas.

What does the future hold? Who knows. It just keeps getting better.