Where I started
My grandparents adopted me when I was three weeks old.
My mother was twenty. My father was twenty. Neither of them was in a position to raise a child. My grandfather's parents stepped in and made it official. I became their son legally, and my grandmother raised me.
I never saw my biological mother again.
The man who raised me
My grandfather was a Vietnam veteran. He served two tours as a combat engineer - building bridges, demolition work, clearing vegetation. That last part mattered more than anyone knew at the time. Clearing vegetation meant Agent Orange exposure. The kind of exposure that doesn't show up for decades.
After 22 years in the Army he retired. Later in life the health problems started. A blockage in his heart. Triple bypass surgery. Then a prostate cancer diagnosis. We beat it. Put it in remission.
A few years later it came back. More aggressive this time.
He passed in 2007. I was eleven years old. Just starting fifth grade.
Growing up after
My biological father was around but not in the way you need a father to be around. My grandmother and my aunt raised me through my teenage years. That experience made me independent in ways I'm still grateful for.
But approaching thirty, I realize there's a gap I can't close. I don't know my full ancestry. I don't know what diseases run in my family. I don't know what health history I'm carrying that I can't see yet.
That's a strange place to stand.
Why this work means something
When Kiromic reached out in 2021 about visualizing a gene therapy facility in Houston, I didn't connect all of this immediately. I just knew the project felt different. More serious. More real.
The connection came later.
Gene therapy. Cancer research. Pharmaceutical manufacturing. These aren't abstract industries to me. They're the fields that were trying to save my grandfather. They're the fields that might one day answer questions about my own health history that I can't answer myself.
Making sure these facilities get built correctly - that the floor plans make sense, that the compliance logic is clear, that the people approving these spaces can actually see how they function - that matters to me in a way that goes beyond a service offering.
I'm not just visualizing GMP facilities because it's a good niche.
I'm doing it because I understand what happens inside them and why it has to be right.