about
Experienced Tech
Entrepreneur and Inventor
Excels at mastering the detailed technical interworking of any system or mechanism, software or hardware (the 'Inventor' side) while never losing focus on the business qualifiers, implications and requirements to bring it to market (the 'Entrepreneurial' side). Takes ideas or concepts to fruition, refining them and finding every way possible to monetize them. Bridges the gap between marketing and engineering, building out best practices.
Key roles in a number of technology start-ups as well as with a Fortune 100 company has created a depth of experience spanning multiple disciplines - engineering, sales, marketing, product and business development.
Some Background...
Born and raised in Seattle Washington, my first Tech job was when I was just 13 years of age working for a local electronics surplus store, Vetco Electronics. My 'pay checks' at that time almost always went right back to the company towards electronic parts, computers and other related equipment all fueling my maker hobby before the term maker was even a thing.
I soon had started my first company, System One Audio, selling every school mate in my Junior High school audio gear. This then quickly transitioned to selling full on computer systems, parts and repair services as well as custom electronic designs and prototyping while in High School, changing the company name to System One Technologies around 1991.
As I gained more work designing custom electronics and a number of prototypes later, I realized bridging the gap between computers and the physical world was not just something I loved doing, but was also a huge opportunity on multiple fronts with the dawn of IoT just around the corner. Shortly after graduating high school, I created my first custom 16-bit ISA card for computer control in 1995. This provided a near endless number of addressable IO channels easily switched or read from DOS or Windows on any PC.
My computer control system was put in to production in 1997 with a company selling roses from vending machines, controlling all aspects of the hardware. This project was the inspiration for my first real startup of my own - MediaExpress, selling DVDs and CDs from an interactive kiosk. Post MediaExpress, I then went in to the datacenter, hosting, telecom and VOIP spaces and eventually built a private VOIP backbone across the US and Canada. My direct involvement deploying Cisco networking, routing and VOIP equipment at scale eventually lead me to an almost 15 year career with Cisco Systems.
More recently, I have been getting back in to the Startup world again and I am truly enjoying building things from the ground up.
Aside from technology, my other passions in life are downhill skiing, travel, boating and cooking.