About Me

I’ve worn many hats in and around software engineering. Throughout, I’ve always kept one foot in the codebase, even when bridging into people management, product management, and pragmatic marketing.

Bridging quality engineering into quality product (and vice-versa) has been my chief professional interest.

I have more than 20 years of software development experience in diverse business domains. I’ve designed and implemented sophisticated, high-volume, business-critical systems. I’ve set product and technology vision and planned technical and product roadmaps.

My comfort-zone is deep and broad: low-level code to high-level design. I lead teams and mentor developers. I have strong abilities to document, prioritize, and organize, as well as excellent communication skills.

Personal Trivia

Out of college, I played key roles in two Minnesota institutions.

I was the main contributor in the team that founded mpr.org for Minnesota Public Radio. The Web presence then was much more ambitious than it is today. At the time (based on the popularity of A Prairie Home Companion) Netscape made significant financial, hardware, and software contributions. We were provided resources for interesting new projects, including pioneering early video netcasts. This is where I started with Java and JavaScript. (This was also the heyday of Perl.)

Before that, I was a book buyer (and book seller) for Odegard Books of Minneapolis until Dan Odegard closed up in the face of expansion by national chain stores. In its day, Odegard Books of Minneapolis was one of the great independents (think Powell’s of Portland). This is where I discovered and dove into many of my favorite authors of classic fiction.

My computing experiences date back to my childhood. My very first personal computer was the Sinclair ZX81, followed by the Apple II Plus. Apple BASIC was the first programming language with which I spent significant time. During my high school years, I studied Computer Science at Minnesota State University.