My History

It's hard to talk about myself; I find other people interesting - and I reflect on my self, life and history frequently, but it's not novel to me.

I'm a person, husband, dad, ally and friend. I struggle to love my neighbor as myself, when my neighbors make selfish choices. I still try.

I grew up in Upstate New York, Syracuse, mostly south of town in a area called South Onondaga - then during my high school years, we moved into the city. Finished high school at Thomas J Corcoran, a few blocks from my grandparents and across the street from the lovely Onondaga Park.

I attended college at Northeastern in Boston, where I had the fortune to work with outstanding faculty who wisely directed my academic career in Computer Science and well supported my entryance to the workforce. I will always be thankful for John Casey, Viera Proulx, Bryant York, and Cindy Brown.

Through Northeastern’s Cooperative Education program, I worked at Thinking Machines Corporation, MITRE, and served as the system administrator for "Scout," the research Connection Machine at the Laboratory for Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Also thanks to Northeasterns Coop program, I spent my last couple of coops at Argonne National Laboratory, outside Chicago - a suggestion from Remy Evard - that led to my first full-time role. I progressed at Argonne from coop student to help create and develop a new group we called The Futures Lab. We had the privilege of being futurists before anyone had a word for it. While there, I completed a Masters in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL), University of Illinois, Chicago. During this period I also met my wife, became a step-father to two young children, and had two more children.

After a decade in Chicago, we made a change to support one of our kids, moving to Montana. It was a time of significant changes, we learned so much. The first couple of years I worked for Argonne from Montana, driving 21 hours every other weekend to give both my job and my family equal time; that became extremely challenging so I developed enough partnership with Montana State University in Bozeman that I could eventually get on board. While there I built support for academic and research computing and taught undergrad and masters level courses.

I left MSU and spent a couple of years at Webfilings (now Workiva), a business reporting and regulatory compliance company, I completed a PhD in Computer Science (2013) at Montana State University, "Algorithmic Aspects of Resource Allocation in Cognitive Wireless Networks". My time at Workiva was super challenging, startup life is something I wish I enjoyed, but I prefer investing or advising. I did have both fun and success in recruiting and building an entire workforce in Bozeman - multiple product teams, many engineers, and did "all the jobs" - from office cleaner, to engineering manager, to therapist - it was incredibly informative.

Leaving Workiva put a kind in my plans, I wanted to live and die in Montana - it's so beautiful; but having "poached" from every tech company I could work for, it was challenging to find a role. So I reached out to the vast network I love - people I've known and worked with my entire life - and found a possibility at Microsoft.

I temporarily picked up and moved to Seattle one spring, and by fall the family joined me and we were starting the process of settling. My role at Microsoft was contract based, so it wasn't until I found a permanent role we put down roots. We have been here since.

My time at Microsoft, approaching a decade now, has been another education. This time in scale - working at one of the largest technology companies on the planet as it intentionally transforms itself has been amazing. I have so many people I could thank for what I have learned and how I have grown (so many it's not worth trying to list them all!). I joined as a Software Engineer on a team that was just being built - there were five of us, I have moved back and forth from that team and now work in our Skilling business. My roles have evolved from Engineer, to Program Manager, to Strategist.

As our children have grown and embarked on their lives further from our base in Seattle, I have had more time to pursue hobbies. Those who know me know I haven't met a hobby I haven't liked. Many of the pages on this site are an attempt to share what I have learned through those hobbies, or what I have produced while pursuing them. I am a perpetual student, I will continue to learn as long as I have breath.

Please, enjoy this site - share the journey - the sooner we all find a way to thrive by doing what aligns our passion and talent, we have all won.