About

I started programming at eight, copying game code out of books from Waldenbooks and changing it to see what would happen. Nobody taught me. That is still how I learn: take it apart, rebuild it, understand it.

At the University of Louisville I put in 160+ credit hours across Commercial Art, then Marketing, then Computer Information Systems. I left because my dot-com job was teaching me more than class was. The three fields turned out to be a recipe: art gave me the eye, marketing gave me the business sense, and CIS gave me the foundations.

That dot-com job was Internet Tool & Die, a web engineering shop where elite engineers and sysadmins taught me Unix, shell scripting, JSP, PHP, and PostgreSQL. Shell scripting is still one of my favorite tools 27 years later, in daily use.

At PropertySource Network I built the system behind in-person broker launch events, dynamically generating personalized print packets and websites for every agent in the room. I designed the print materials and graphics too. The personalized launch experience anchored the sales model.

I joined HelloMetro as CTO in 2006, leading an eight-person engineering team over a network of 1,600+ local city guide sites. IP-based geolocation, dozens of ad and content API integrations, roughly $9 million in annual revenue, a spot on Louisville Business First's Fast 50 in 2011, and a successful exit.

Alongside it I co-founded Clicker, a bootstrapped platform of roughly 200 niche content properties serving millions of unique visitors a month. It sustained multi-million dollar profitability for 13 years with no outside capital. I built about 30 of the properties myself, including several of the top earners.

In 2010 I started Pixel Guild, my own studio for native macOS, iOS, and web work. I ship end to end in Swift, SwiftUI, and TypeScript, and I own all of it: the visual design, the engineering, the distribution, the support. Relay is a paid app on the Mac App Store. Loom, Gammy, and StudySpark are live. I publish technical writing at pixelguild.com/articles.

Since 2020 I have been a Principal Software Engineer leading AI integration at one of the largest family offices in the US, where I am the sole engineer responsible for the entire custom Google Cloud footprint: multi-project, provisioned in Terraform, fully containerized, and governed end to end, including the bill. Every AI tool I ship there runs on user-delegated auth, and I mentor a team of five engineers through code review and technical direction.

What I bring to consulting is completeness. I take products from a blank text editor to commercial SaaS alone, including the brand, the interface, and the visual design. And 27 years in, I am still amazed by this field. Working with AI code assistance feels like wearing a suit of power armor.

Outside of work I live in the Louisville area with my wife and daughter. You'll find me fly fishing remote Kentucky streams, camping, or riding my Ducati Sport Classic GT. Craftsmanship and performance, combined.