About Me

 
I’ve spent 26 years in defense IT. Sev­en of those were on active duty as a Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Sergeant in the Air Force. The rest I’ve spent as a con­trac­tor try­ing to fix the things I saw bro­ken while I was in uni­form. This blog is where I write about the space indus­try, defense tech­nol­o­gy, and the poli­cies that con­nect them. Not as a spec­ta­tor. As some­one who’s been in the room, done the work, and has the scars to show for it.
 
Here’s what I believe: the Depart­ment of War strug­gles to do IT well. If IT were a weapons sys­tem, it would have failed its oper­a­tional test a long time ago. Smart, edu­cat­ed pro­fes­sion­als are work­ing on dupli­cate efforts with­out a clear under­stand­ing of how their sys­tems tie into the larg­er enter­prise, and the tech­ni­cal debt com­pounds every year. 
 
Any “indi­vid­ual” can com­plain about prob­lems. A leader brings solu­tions. That’s what I’m try­ing to do here.
 
I spent two years as a Data Archi­tect for U.S. Spe­cial Oper­a­tions Com­mand, where I co-authored the USSOCOM Data Strat­e­gy and reduced 200 IT projects to 60 that actu­al­ly mat­tered. At Jacobs, I inher­it­ed a strug­gling pro­gram and turned it around in three months. At CDW Gov­ern­ment, I pio­neered a Pro­gram-Based Account approach for the DoD sec­tor and grew the U.S. Space Book of Busi­ness by $30 mil­lion in 24 months. Today, I serve as Senior Direc­tor of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment at Gen­er­al Dynam­ics Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy, where I focus on sys­tems inte­gra­tion across the Space Force and Air Force markets.
 
I’ve pub­lished in AFCEA’s Sig­nals mag­a­zine, CDW-G’s Fed Tech Mag­a­zine, and for the Space Force Asso­ci­a­tion. I’ve deliv­ered keynotes and talked shop with every­one from junior enlist­ed to gen­er­al offi­cers, and I speak to all of them the same way. If you’ve read my piece on zom­bie tech­nol­o­gy, you know what I mean. I’d rather use an anal­o­gy that makes the prob­lem real than write anoth­er mil­i­tary brief that puts every­one to sleep.
 
I write for what I call “intel­lec­tu­al sav­ages.” Peo­ple who are just as com­fort­able dis­cussing nuclear deter­rence and the dif­fer­ences between AI and machine learn­ing as they are enjoy­ing good wine, cig­ars, and time out­doors. If that sounds like your crowd, you’re in the right place.
I hold an Exec­u­tive MBA from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tam­pa and a BS in Inter­net Sys­tems and Soft­ware Tech­nol­o­gy from Belle­vue Uni­ver­si­ty. I main­tain an active secu­ri­ty clear­ance. Out­side of work, I’m a mem­ber of the Amer­i­can Legion and the Free & Accept­ed Freema­sons, and I’ve served in lead­er­ship roles with AFCEA Inter­na­tion­al, includ­ing Co-Pres­i­dent of Emerg­ing Lead­ers and VP of Mem­ber­ship and Inter­nal Affairs. I’m pas­sion­ate about men­tor­ing mil­i­tary vet­er­ans as they tran­si­tion into the com­mer­cial sec­tor because I made that tran­si­tion myself, and nobody hand­ed me a playbook.
 
If some­thing here is use­ful to you, sub­scribe. If you dis­agree with me, I wel­come that con­ver­sa­tion. And if you want to con­nect, the /contact page is always open.