Some of my earliest memories are of roaming around my grandfather’s factory looking for scrap metal and wood, finding these hidden treasures under the metal brake or an unattended workbench, and assembling them into some creation that only my inner child knew what to do with. To this day, I’m still drawn to the smell of machine oil soaked floors — the scent of my grandfather’s factory — because it means I’m near something in the process of being built. My thirst for building didn’t stop here. I remember sneaking my Pop’s tools out of the garage so I could disassemble and reassemble one of my sibling’s toys because I wanted to know how it worked — and then hoping to remember the exact location I pulled the tools from so I wouldn’t get caught. 

This early-age tinkering led me to my local bike shop in high school, where I worked part-time building and repairing bicycles. Later on, I started building computers from scratch for fun. And while I eventually anchored myself firmly into a career in technology I never dropped the hammer or stopped working with my hands. I always continued building something on the side to level out the peaks and valleys of working life.

Now, for the first time, my love for technology and construction lives harmoniously under one roof through my new company, ByFusion. We are transforming plastic that litters our oceans and landfills into high-performing, reusable building blocks.

As I write this, there are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic already in our oceans. Every day, another 8 million pieces of plastic are added. The magnitude of these numbers is hard to grasp. And because plastic is designed to last forever, it never fully breaks down, pushing marine life and their ecosystems near — and tragically in some cases, already beyond — their breaking points. 

As the world’s plastic consumption continues to increase, ByFusion is showing how this ubiquitous material can be repurposed into the first-ever reusable construction-grade blocks for projects that strengthen our people, our cities, and our communities. ByBlocks, ByFusion’s trademark product, are made entirely from collected unrecyclable plastic that would otherwise be disposed of in our oceans and landfills. As a construction junkie, I am amazed and inspired by the simplicity of our fusion process and ByBlocks ease of use. 

As our company grows and I grow with it, I’m looking forward to sharing this next phase of my journey with you and working with government leaders and partners to reshape the future of plastic waste — and with it, the future of our planet we call home.