Testimonials

I worked with Blake for over three years at Seismic, where Blake was our lead developer. On top of being highly capable and reliable, Blake is one of the nicest, most patient, and dependable developers I’ve ever worked with. We went through two challenging site migrations and redesigns together. Anybody who has been through that knows the kinds of ups and downs, unexpected speed bumps, and difficult challenges that inevitably happen. Blake was a cool, calm, solid partner as we worked through them all. One of the things I love about Blake is his determination to find a way. You will very rarely hear a simple “no” from him. He’s the kind of guy that looks for solutions and ways to get to yes. He’ll do the research, so if he says something isn’t technically feasible, you can count on that. But you can also count on him suggesting an alternative. “We can’t do it this way, but if we can make this adjustment, we could do it.” Blake is a problem solver. Blake is also absolutely dedicated. We literally had to tell the guy to get offline and get some sleep. He takes on a tremendous amount and he delivers. Blake is not going to let you down. Whether it’s as a consultant or a permanent employee, you’ll be lucky to have Blake working for you.

Blake is, without exaggeration, the most capable web developer I’ve worked with. He combines deep technical expertise with calm, focused execution, even under the most intense deadlines. When he joined Seismic, we were in the middle of a massive rebrand with over 40 pages to launch, and Blake jumped in immediately, delivering high-quality work while still onboarding and navigating a complex tech stack. He was instrumental in our transition from WordPress to Sitecore, helping move nearly 1000 pages, setting up a reverse proxy to ensure uptime and continuity, and leading on many of the web architecture decisions that made the new experience stable and scalable. Beyond that, Blake took on the time-consuming task of QA triage with grace and consistency, keeping us on track and calmly solving every problem that came his way. Blake is humble, collaborative, and incredibly sharp. He works effortlessly across teams, communicates technical concepts clearly, and brings a solutions-first mindset to everything he touches. Any organization would be lucky to have him on their team.

Blake is one of the most knowledgeable developers I've ever met. He constantly goes above and beyond on every project he gets his hands on. He is a great thinker, an amazing problem solver, a superb communicator and anyone would be lucky to have him as part of their team or project. Blake has helped shape Gray Digital Groups development process with tools such as Gulp, Docker, and Webpack. His efforts have helped the team develop sites that are both efficient, optimized, and user-friendly. I’d highly recommend Blake for any project or job, you won’t be disappointed. One of Blake’s greatest skills is pushing the envelope; he is constantly on the forefront of new and exciting technology. He lives and breathes development which is evident in his day-to-day pursuit of solving problems for clients both big and small. He has amazing attention to detail and can tell you a thousand ways to solve problems all while keeping within time-frame and budget.

There are few developers that I've worked with that have the aptitude for writing and thinking about code, the way Blake does. I had the pleasure of working with Blake at Gray Digital Group as I directed web application projects. His insight and recommendations for handling key issues on a project always trended towards planning early, in order to properly manage the work going forward, as well as offering up solutions to issues, and not just pointing out roadblocks. Any lead/director knows the value of having someone on your team that is able to do this, as it creates value in meetings versus extending a talk with no solutions. Blake is relentless in his pursuit to create solutions to technical problems and yet knows when to offer up variable solutions if a path would extend beyond the budget/timeframe available. For myself as a team leader, it was absolutely invaluable having someone that not only had amazing attention to detail but was also able to step back and look at the bigger scope, in order to reassess and preemptively change course if needed. Blake always had a great disposition, regardless of the weather, crunch times at work, having a cold, you name it! That "soft skill", is something very rare among developers, and is highly valued. While he may get focused in the work he's doing, he's not the stereotypical uncommunicative developer, by far! As a developer, Blake has my highest recommendation for any code based projects.

I had the opportunity to work with Blake at Gray Digital Group. He is the type of developer every Project Manager hopes they will have on their team. Blake was a team player, who happily took on everything from smaller maintenance tasks to large-scale website redesign and development projects. What stood out to me while working with Blake were his communication skills. The majority of our interactions were day-to-day project tasking and progress updates. He always clearly communicated with myself and the rest of the team. He excelled at risk management and being proactive. It wasn't until we had an on-site client meeting that I realized that Blake was not only an effective communicator internally, but he also got the job done in front of the client. Client meetings can be challenging as you never quite know the topic they will ask about or where the conversation may go. Blake handled this meeting with professionalism and was able to think on his feet to provide clear answers to the client. I highly recommend Blake!

Blake is _THE_ developer everyone wants on their team. He's able to take the most technically complicated problems the team has and solve those with ease. However, Blake's most valuable quality is his continued pursuit of new skills and technologies. He would spend his personal time learning new techniques and then bring those back to the office to share with the team. Blake was consistently pushing the bounds of his skills to deliver for customers and in the process making the team around him that much better.

I can't say enough about Blake. While we worked together, Blake received numerous projects that seemed nearly impossible, and he tore through them like nothing, without ever sacrificing code standards or communication. Not only did Blake accomplish his primary tasks, but he found time to identify code & development opportunities and share these with the team on nearly every project he was handed. The team would have been at a complete loss without Blake's initiative to uphold multiple roles, from Front-End Development to Content Architecture, and even client discovery meetings and trainings.

I had the opportunity to work with Blake at Gray Digital Group for about a year. He is an amazing person that would go above and beyond to ensure all deadlines were met and would present a multitude of solutions for all my clients. He's a true professional with amazing attention to detail, extensive technical knowledge and a wonderful positive attitude. When the pressure's on, Blake is able to focus on the task at hand and get things done. From design to coding and testing, he has a great skillset that will take him far.

Blake was the first true Digital Media lab assistant that the Digital Media department at Northwest Vista had the pleasure of employing. In this position Blake wore many hats which included being our equipment specialist and lead tutor for front end web development in our labs. Blake was timely and was always a person who you could count on to get any task done. His natural ability to go above and beyond the requirements of any task is what made Blake an asset to our team. Blake shaped the expectations and job requirements for lab assistants that succeeded him. Blake was also a former student of mine and much like in his job excelled and exceeded in all assignments and expectations. He was quick to think outside of the box and incorporate teachings along the way. His ability to not only retain the information but also help others grasp concepts made him a respected classmate among his peers. There is not a day that goes by that I do not miss Blake as a student and as a lab assistant, but I am very glad that he has found his place in the workforce as I knew he would.