Two riders
My wife and I ride together, mostly back roads with no particular destination. I grew up on dirt bikes and fast sport bikes. These days it's cruisers, and the point is the company rather than the speed.
Software architect, builder, and leader
I build the systems organizations end up depending on.
I've founded companies, run engineering departments, and written the first version of products that went on to lead their markets. I've also served in two branches of the military, jumped out of a great many airplanes, and built a house by hand with my wife. The project briefs below are the best place to start.
A few facts: Sold his first game as a kid; Earned DHS's first-ever SaaS ATO; Took a $50K/month idle bill to $0; Helped build Backup Exec at Arcada; Founded SpamJammer, later acquired; Architected over 100 applications; Built Travelers' company-wide messaging hub; Army infantry and Marine Corps vet; Competed in martial arts tournaments; Over 10,000 skydives, no logbook; Built a 32-foot tiny house by hand.
Selected work
Project briefs
Each brief opens with a short summary and then explains the situation, the decisions, how the system works, and what changed.
CISA, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
A cyber training range that costs nothing when no one is using it
CISA was paying about $50,000 a month for training labs that billed even when empty and took hours to prepare. I invented and built the replacement: isolated labs built for each student on demand and delivered in a browser. It became the first SaaS product granted an Authority to Operate by DHS.
$0cost while idle
< 30 sto a ready lab
FirstSaaS ATO from DHS
Arcada Software, later Seagate and Symantec
Building Backup Exec from the hardware up
As part of the small founding development team, I wrote the tape device drivers and core capabilities behind one of the industry's first comprehensive backup products. It became the world's leading backup software.
#1worldwide under Seagate
100+employees, from a handful
2acquisitions
SpamJammer
A company I founded to stop spam by confirming senders before delivery. It grew into a hardware appliance and was acquired by a major antivirus company.
Spotless Software
The company I founded as a hired gun for teams struggling to ship. I chose the teams we helped, worked in the trenches with them, and architected more than a hundred applications with teams on several continents.
A messaging standard at Travelers
A messaging service built for one claims team that Travelers adopted as its company-wide standard for outbound communication.
Background
Roles I've held
No timeline, just the shape of it. It started with a kit computer and two games.
Leading
- Founder and company owner
- Managing Member
- Vice President
- Director of Software Engineering
Building
- Inventor and principal engineer
- Solution Architect
- Lead Architect
- Team Lead
- Founding developer
- Technical consultant
Serving
- U.S. Army infantry veteran
- U.S. Marine Corps, prosecution team
- Cloud-native architecture
- AI-assisted engineering
- Cybersecurity training platforms
- Federal compliance and ATO
- Infrastructure as code
- Rescuing struggling teams
- Insurance modernization
- Data protection
- Product launches
- Mentoring developers
Outside of work
A life that isn't only software
Software is still my favorite hobby. These are the others, and there’s more on the Life page.
10,000+
Skydives
I stopped logging jumps long ago. Freefall is the closest thing to flight there is, and under canopy the world goes quiet.
Built by hand
We co-founded a small cabinetry business and built a 32-foot tiny house together, every cabinet and built-in by hand. Today my shop runs on CNC and laser tools, and the next project is always on the whiteboard.
Martial arts
I started in karate because of a bully, then went on to Tang Soo Do, Hapkido, Aikido, Ninpo Ninjutsu, and Taekwondo. Every new school, I started over at white belt. You have to walk in with an empty cup.
Watches and music
I collect watches, from inexpensive quartz pieces to Swiss automatics, for the engineering more than the price. I once mixed live on Hartford dance radio as Ryan D'Baisse, and I still mix for the love of it.
2
Branches of service
I served in the U.S. Army as an infantryman and later in the U.S. Marine Corps on the prosecution team, where I also helped keep the base's networks and software running.
In my own words
What I believe
“AI doesn’t replace developers. It replaces bad developers… regardless of seniority.”
“If someone has positively impacted your life, take a moment to let them know.”
“Faith isn’t about the clothes you wear, what the church looks like, or what car you drive. It’s about whether you have that personal connection.”
“Either do the research and vote intelligently, or don’t vote at all. But if you don’t vote, you don’t get a say.”
“It doesn’t matter whose picture is on the wall. Whoever the commander-in-chief is, your job doesn’t change.”
“I once shut down my own email-list business because it didn’t sit right with me. Then I built a product to fight spam.”
“There’s no correct time to start building software. You just need to do it.”