THE STORY BEHIND THE WORK
Audience Has Always Come First
I’ve spent much of my career thinking about how ideas connect with people. Long before I called it marketing, I was learning how audience, message, story, and execution work together.
My foundation began with a BA in Communications and a focus on rhetoric—the study of how language, ideas, and persuasion shape the way people think and respond. That background taught me to ask questions that still guide my work today: Who are we speaking to? What matters to them? What are we trying to communicate? And what do we want them to do next?
BUILT THROUGH PRODUCTION
Turning Ideas Into Experiences
I carried that audience-first thinking into a career in creative production, where I spent years helping turn ideas into branded content, digital entertainment, and commercial advertising. Working with creative teams, agencies, clients, budgets, schedules, and production crews taught me that a strong idea only matters if you can execute it.
Production also taught me something that would eventually lead me toward marketing: every creative decision exists in relation to an audience. The story, the message, the platform, and the experience all influence whether the work connects.
Creative production taught me how to make the idea real. Marketing taught me to ask why we were making it in the first place.
FROM PRODUCTION TO MARKETING
Expanding the Story
Digital marketing gave me a way to expand what I had been doing throughout my career. Instead of focusing only on creating the work, I began thinking more deeply about what happens before and after it: audience research, positioning, content strategy, copywriting, UX, SEO, distribution, analytics, and optimization.
That shift brought together skills that had been developing throughout my career—my background in rhetoric, my experience leading creative production, and my understanding of how stories connect with audiences.
Project Legacy became the place where I put those disciplines into practice. Through my work with House of Mkali, I took a real client engagement from discovery and brand positioning through content strategy, digital experience development, launch, distribution, measurement, and ongoing optimization.
I wasn’t leaving storytelling behind. I was learning how to build the strategy around it.
PROJECT LEGACY
Building Work That Lasts
Project Legacy began as a way to put what I was learning about marketing into practice through real work. But as the project developed, it became something more: a philosophy for how I approach creative and marketing problems.
At its core is a simple idea—understand the people you’re trying to reach, build with purpose, tell a story that matters, learn from how the audience responds, and continue making the work better.
I organize that thinking through a framework I call ASSeME:
A — AUDIENCE
Who are we talking to?
S — STRATEGY
Why are we doing it?
S — STORY
What are we saying?
E — EXPERIENCE
How will people encounter it?
M — MEASUREMENT
What happened?
E — EVOLUTION
What’s next?
What are we building that lasts?
BEYOND THE WORK
Curiosity Has Always Been Part of the Story
My story extends well beyond marketing and production. I was born in Vietnam during the final days of the war and came to the United States through Operation Babylift. The plane carrying me crashed shortly after takeoff from Saigon, and surviving that experience became the beginning of a life shaped by change, adaptation, and perspective.
I’ve been a wheelchair user since childhood, but I’ve never wanted that to be the headline of my story. I’m a writer, traveler, sports fan, food enthusiast, beach lover, and someone who remains endlessly curious about people, ideas, language, and the stories we tell.
That curiosity follows me into my work. I ask questions. I pay attention to how people communicate and what makes an idea connect. Whether I’m thinking about rhetoric, developing a marketing strategy, producing creative work, or writing something simply because I have something to say, I’m interested in understanding people and finding the story worth telling.
The work changes. Curiosity remains.
LET'S BUILD SOMETHING
What Are You Working On?
I’m always interested in good ideas, meaningful stories, and opportunities to build something with purpose. Whether you’re developing a brand, creating content, strengthening your marketing, or looking for someone who can connect strategy with creative execution, I’d like to hear what you’re working on.