“I’ve always been into computers since middle school.”
Janel, our Consultant of the Month, fondly remembers the first webpage she built when she was a freshman in high school. She didn’t have a computer at the time, so she would go to her local library and sign up to use one. Thus began her love affair with technology, as she used HTML to build websites on Angelfire and Geocities—a staple of the late 1990s, full of tiled backgrounds, blinking text, and clipart. “I was blogging about R&B and hip-hop,” Janel says. “I loved going to concerts so I would blog about it. I don’t do enough of that now—I need to do more blogging.”
Although Janel hasn’t been blogging very much lately, she still exercises her creative muscle. Currently, she is at a health and beauty company doing front-end and web development, on her first stint through Crescent Solutions. It’s also her first time working for this type of industry, as she’s been at entertainment and music companies prior to this—and feels it’s a refreshing change.
“I like being challenged and having something new and fresh to do,” Janel says, “because if you do stuff that’s monotonous all the time, it starts to get boring.”
When Janel isn’t working, she still surrounds herself around music and art. She visits museums in Los Angeles like LACMA, and she recently photographed 93.5 KDAY’s Krush Groove concert for The Flow Online—a music website. At the concert, she met some hip-hop stars like Mack 10, Too Short, and a member of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. Janel does it “just to be around music” and to “get away from the computer screen.”
A Baltimore native, Janel didn’t move to Los Angeles until 2004 when she attended The Art Institute of California in Hollywood to obtain her bachelor’s degree in web design and interactive media. A determined and diligent worker, she took on two retail jobs while attending night and online classes to get to where she is today.
David Etnire, Crescent Solutions’ Senior Recruiter, who met Janel six months ago, only has positive things to say about her. “What a great personality,” David says. “[She's] genuine and real, which definitely helped get her the job! Of course, her web development and design skills are top notch.”
“And her current company obviously agrees with me,” he adds. “She is currently in negotiations to make this a permanent job. We couldn’t be happier for her!”