Hi, I'm Aaron

A full-stack web developer, an instructional designer, and general man about the interwebs.

I've been developing media for education since 1998. I started as an assistant for Salt Lake Community College's E-Business Technology program. Since then, I've worked with the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law and done a fair amount of freelance and consulting work. I currently wear a number of hats at Extegrity Inc., including development and maintenance of the Exam4 family of sites and web services.

I have an M.Ed. in educational psychology with an emphasis on instructional design from the University of Utah. In addition to full-stack web development, I'm interested in the psychology behind effective technology-based or technology-assisted instruction.

Portfolio

  • Now
  • 2012 - present
    Extegrity Inc.
    Director of Web Services Sometimes "Harbinger of Interwebs"

    I wear a lot of hats in this role. I'll bullet-point some of the more interesting ones:

    • Design, develop, and maintain at least six web apps. I manage the entire back-end from databases to servers both hosted and local.
    • Provide internal IT support ranging from OS installs, to email, to VPN servers, etc.
    • Provide end-user support via Zendesk.
    • Lead team providing technical and software support for the bi-annual Arizona State Bar Exam.
    • Design and developed working prototype exam client software for macOS 10.14+.
    Screenshot of exam4.com Screenshot of another exam4.com interface Screenshot of next-gen Exam4 macOS client
    Technologies
    Front end
    • HTML5
    • CSS 3
    • JavaScript
    • jQuery
    • SASS
    Back end
    • PHP 7
    • Apache 2.4
    • MySQL 8
    Servers
    • AWS
    • Azure
    • DigitalOcean
    • Self-managed physical servers
    Services & Integrations
    • OpenVPN
    • Mailchimp & Mandrill
    • Rollbar
    • Zendesk
    • Cloudflare
    • Slack
    • GitHub
    • Stripe
    Various Other Technologies
    • Docker
    • IIS
    • WSL 2
    • Debian & Friends
    • JSON & XML APIs
    • Angular
    • Composer, NPM, Gulp, etc.
    • Bootstrap 3 & 4
    • Symfony
    • Laravel
    Design & Prototyping
    • Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator
    • Affinity Photo & Designer
    • Sketch
    Desktop & Mobile Development
    • Xcode 11 & 12
    • Swift 4 & 5
  • 2008 - 2012
    University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law
    Full-stack Web Developer + Instructional Designer + Media Producer

    This was an excellent and fullfilling time for me. Here are the bullets:

    • Designed, developed, and managed over 28 institutional websites.
    • Developed and maintained several desktop and mobile applications for Windows, macOS, and iOS.
    • Provided IT support to faculty and students.
    • Produced a variety of instructional resources, included animated instructional video for law courses.
    • Produced videos, images, other assets, and mock news websites for counter-terrorism simulations.
    Screenshot of law.utah.edu circa 2012 Screenshot of counter-terrorism sim website
    Technologies
    Front end
    • HTML5
    • CSS
    • JavaScript
    • jQuery
    Back end
    • PHP 5
    • MySQL
    • WordPress
    Desktop & Mobile Development
    • C#
    • Cordova
    Video & Design
    • Adobe Creative Suite
    • Vegas Pro
  • 2007 - 2008
    University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law
    IT Support Staff + C# Developer

    Provided end-user IT support for library staff and patrons. Wrote software for management of patron computers.

    Technologies
    • Visual Studio
    • C#
    Screenshot of Podium Commander app
  • LDS Audiovisual Dept
    Short video producer + IT manager

    Assisted with creation of a new "small jobs" shop for short format and quick-turnaround videos. Built and managed video editing workstations.

  • 2001 - 2004
    Aperture Laboratories
    Apparatus Tester

    Tested various apparatus for Science.

    Okay, not really. This one's a joke. I might owe you cake if you picked up on it.

Etcetera

Other Projects

Instructional collaboration project with the Utah Museum of Natural History providing a online virtual museum for K-12 students.

Selected Talks & Presentations

Herd, A. (2009, June). Polishing Your Digital Identity. Talk presented at the CALI Conference for Law School Computing (CALI 2009), Boulder, CO.

Herd, A., Christiansen, W. (2008, June). The Proactive Front-Line Help Desk: Management & Multimedia. Session presented at the CALI Conference for Law School Computing (CALI 2008), Baltimore, MA.