I was born in Chicago and grew up in the South Suburbs. I always had a passion for education and languages which led me to earn a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics from Indiana University. I continued my education by earning a Master of Sciences in Sociolinguistics from Georgetown University. I live with my wife and our three LISD children, who are currently in elementary and middle school.

After discovering that working for a government contractor in language services wasn’t fulfilling, I decided to become a teacher in Baltimore City Public Schools. I began my career as a Science teacher. In the summer after my first year, I taught summer school to join a program in City Schools that allowed schools to borrow VEX robotics kits during the school and volunteer as coaches afterschool.

After a difficult first year coaching against much stronger teams in the district, I noticed that almost 60% of the 50+ coaches left after the first year. I continued to coach and lobbied for two years to receive support for a Baltimore City Schools only VEX Robotics League, which still exists 10 years later.

As one of the founders of the league, I created coaches clinics and acted as the Technical Director for all of the league competitions. The first year of the league saw zero attrition, all 51 coaches stayed on.

I also acted as a Science Department head, wrote science curriculum for the district, co-wrote two VEX Robotics curriculums, taught reading & math to elementary students, and was a high school Technology teacher. In my final year, my students averaged 3 grade levels of improvement in middle school math.

I was recruited by an education technical startup in the spring of my final year and was a key player in helping the company be acquired by Google. Zach has continued to work for Google since then.