FullBleed

Photo courtesy Sean McCormick

Russell Heimlich is a lefty. And an only child. And he knows a thing or two about computers.

“My parents really wanted me to be good at computers, so there has been a computer in our house for as long as I can remember. My first computer was a Commodore 64; my parents wrote DOS commands so I could play games,” he said. “As we upgraded computers I learned more and more about them. My dad worked for the government, and he once took me in so I could use Gopher, a pre-Internet computer network.”

But this 24-year-old Marylander wasn’t ONLY into computers. While growing up in Columbia, and particularly in middle school, he started skateboarding with a group of friends. Which led to getting a video camera to film their tricks … which led to video editing … (wait a sec) …

“Of course, after you have a bunch of footage, you need to have a website where you can show it off. This was how I got into web editing. I learned web design like most people did in the late 90’s: by creating a Geocities site (which still can be viewed in its later version).”

When Russell moved beyond middle school and found himself a sophomore, he met his now-fiancee.

“The single most important moment of my life was when I walked around the corner in high school and bumped into my future wife. She has had an enormous impact on everything I do. I find it interesting how everything builds into who I am today.”

They’ve been together for almost nine years. When they get married in May 2010 at the Strathmore Music Center in Rockville, they’ll be bringing down the house. (Get it?)

Now, after spending a few years as a web developer at U.S. News & World Report, he’s working at the Pew Research Center as their sole, in-house web developer.

“I support the various research projects with whatever they need help with web-wise. I’m also going to implement a new CMS that will make it easier for the projects to update and manage content on their own without having to go through me.”

Russell is considering how life will look for him in the future, whether he’s working for someone else or for himself. Regardless, he wants to be using the latest web technologies to help communicate ideas, and he’s not particularly worried about how he’ll get there.

“Things have a quirky way of just falling into place, and as much as you think you can control everything, you just can’t. You have to trust that everything will work out. Even when it doesn’t, it will be OK. There are very few choices that you can’t later correct.”

He said that his biggest influence has been the sea of information shared online about new techniques and tricks. Whenever he had a problem, he would go online to find the answer. For example, he learned HTML by reading articles on A List Apart, viewing source code, and following the blogs of other web developers. It’s also the web that’s influenced his more recent explorations in photography.

“Everything I know about photography I mostly gathered from scouring online message boards that would offer critiques of images. I’ve also been posting my own photos to deviantart.com and receiving feedback.”

Part of Russell’s commitment to the knowledge-sharing mentality of the web can be observed in his participation within the DC tech community events.

“I absolutely love the DC tech community for all of the free events and camps that are offered,” he said. “I remember coming to the first Refresh DC meet-up when I was visiting home from Philadelphia, where I went to school. It was amazing to see so many like-minded web workers come together to discuss issues related to our industry. Also, I think DC BarCamps are the best places to meet local web geeks. I’ve written about each one on my blog and took pictures at them, too.”

Russell said that, throughout his education and career so far, he has learned that under-promising and over-delivering is a great formula for success. And, when it comes down to it:

“I’ve learned you can’t do better than your best. So, plain and simple, always do your best.”