MELISSA WITTMAYER

As I look back now, design has been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember -- as a kid I would cut up my dad's business newsletters and rearrange them so that the content made more sense. Although I didn't initially pursue a career in design, my varied background in crisis intervention, higher education, and startup tech has helped me develop the soft skills I needed to approach design with empathy and understanding of others' needs... While I worked in these varied fields, I learned multiple skills but I couldn't help and feel that I wasn't following my true passion... In 2018 I sold most of my things and moved into a campervan to work remotely and see all 50 US states in a year. Traveling from state to state, city to city, I was constantly experiencing new and different communities. This and the drastic change in my living environment gave me a new perspective.