I learned to read terrain early.

In a Coast Guard household, vigilance isn't a poster on a wall – it's the operating system. Mine shows up as an early-warning instinct: something registers before I can explain it. A decision that doesn't track. Two leaders being a little too careful with each other. A gap between what someone says and how they say it.

I studied Wing Chun for years – a martial art built around interception, meeting a problem while it's still small. I've never found a better description of the work I do now.

The career ran from code to the executive table – database administrator, full-stack developer, Chief Systems Architect at Rackspace, then building global IT and security organizations through 500% growth. Every altitude taught the same lesson: the technology was rarely the real problem. The misalignment was. Business and technical leaders stop understanding each other. Decisions stop sticking. And everyone inside is either too close to see it, or too careful to say it.

I've learned as much about leadership from raising three sons and twelve years as a Scout leader as I have from any boardroom. Teenagers don't care about your title, tune out lectures, and can spot performative leadership from across a campsite. So can engineers. So can wolves.

I wanted to be an archaeologist as a kid – too many Indiana Jones movies. In a sense, it's what I became. Organizations bury things: the disagreement nobody resolved, the risk nobody owns, the decision that keeps getting made twice. I get pulled in to find what's buried and bring it into the light while it's still cheap to fix. Part confidant, part consigliere – I say what I find, early enough to act on.

Off the clock I hike, climb, camp, and kayak – some of my best diagnostic thinking happens above treeline – and I play the drums, which teaches you exactly what happens to talented people when nobody keeps time.