Dan
Birdwhistell

After 18 months in Nashville, I decided to take a break for my first true-to-real vacation. Showed up in St. Thomas with no plans and had a marvelous time.

• Vacation in St. Thomas

Convinced Ben Sinclair to come on full time for the ride!

• bigsight media group

After a couple months of back and forth and negotiation, we closed a small angel round with Doug Sanderson, my former colleague in the toy business

• Doug Sanderson
• bigsight media group

I headed to Spain for Jeff Skopek’s wedding. I was one of the groomsmen alongside Ben Hurlbut. Best wedding I’ve ever been to – congrats, Jeffers!

• Jeff Skopek
• Ben Hurlbut
• Jeff and Laura's Wedding in Oviedo, Spain

After spending about six months learning the game of poker and honing my strategies, I took a week off to try to make a run at the championship in the World Series. I didn’t make it far, but got to play some of the top players in the world. I also landed my first Royal Flush ever…diamonds

After deciding to stay in Nashville, I started a nightlife/event photography site at nashtown.com. Drew Maynard, Jack Wu, and Brian Tipton were there, cameras ready for action.

• Drew Maynard
• Jack Wu
• Brian Tipton
• Britt Johnson
• Tiesto at City Hall

Started work with The Buntin Group in 2007

• The Buntin Group
• Jeffrey Buntin
• John Lensgraf

After a little over three years in LA, I moved to Nashville alongside college sweetheart, Kate Mahan.

• Kate Mahan

After almost two years of work with Jeanne Nakamura and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi at Claremont, I presented a paper from the Good Work in Higher Education study at the annual AERA conference. It was at this conference that I realized that not only was I not particularly good at the academic work, but also that I didn’t enjoy it that much :-).

• American Educational Research Association (AERA)

Joined Steve Huot at Broadspire. And just a short month later we decided to launch Pingworx, the world’s first integrated web agency.

• Broadspire
• Steve Huot

Totally surreal – visited the pyramids on the first day of 2006.

• Egypt

Started work with Claremont Graduate University in 2005

• Claremont Graduate University

Started work with Rockabye Toys in 2004

• Rockabye Toys
• Raul Contreras

After wrapping up a spring in Savannah, GA and Kentucky, I headed out West to start my time with Neurosmith Toys in Long Beach.

• Neurosmith Toys

After wrapping up my time with McKinsey & Company in Belgium, I spent a month with friend Logan in Addis Ababa, where I helped her run a library she oversaw. It was perhaps one of the most important months of my life.

• Black and White from All about

Started work with McKinsey and Company in 2002

• McKinsey & Company

Graduated from University of Cambridge!

• University of Cambridge

I had hardly left Kentucky when I got my first passport. It was the equivalent of an open-ended plane ticket, basically – ended up heading to 34 different countries since.

• Jack Birdwhistell

Graduated from Washington and Lee University!

• Washington and Lee University

Graduated from Scott County High School with these other great people.

• Scott County High School
• Gabriel McKinney
• Kris Wood

I spent the first year of my life in Madisonville, where my father was preacher of the oldest Baptist church in town. We lived right next door

• Jack Birdwhistell