About
A normal Minnesota guy who has been doing this a long time.
I was the kid at the ad agency who could make the website do the thing. That got me a One Show Merit at Olson in 2002, a run at Carmichael Lynch, and a partner seat at Catalyst Studios. Then about fifteen years leading design and technology inside big companies: U.S. Bank, BMW, Principal, GE Digital, Thomson Reuters. In between I started companies, sold some, and pivoted a few, including Lukes & Lukes, an equipment appraisal practice.
Now I take all of that and sell it in smaller pieces to Twin Cities businesses that could never have hired the whole thing. I still do the work myself.
How I read a problem
How I work.
- I treat every project like it is my own money. No wild goose chases on someone else's dime.
- I will tell whoever is in charge what is working, what is not, and when to kill it.
- I will not let three people do what two can do.
- I stay through the landing. If it goes sideways, that is on me, not the team.
I see a business as work moving through it.
Where the hours go, where things wait, where money leaks out. That is how I find AI work worth doing: the step where a tool changes what the job costs, and then I build it.
Layers and frosting, in that order.
Work ethic is the layers. Ideas are the frosting.
I hire people, not job titles.
The teams I have built fit by temperament as much as skill: who will sand whose edges, who will bring out the quiet person's idea, who will say out loud that a project is dying.
I come by it honestly.
Both sides of my family were clockmakers. I chase a timing problem through a system the way they chased a gear that binds, and I check the calibration before anything goes live.
The arc
Agencies, then big companies, then my own.
Developer, then designer, then the person running design and technology for agencies and companies. Almost every job here, I was hired to start something or fix something.
- 2026 → now
Appraisal Dream · Fractional Chief AI Officer
Built their appraisal software and the AI inside it, from nothing. Minnesota Cup 2026 semi-finalist.
- 2024 → 2025
AssetTrax / Dataref · VP of AI
Led the AI work: computer vision, reading documents at scale, and getting prototypes into daily use.
- 2023 → 2024
Asset Verify · Founder & lead AI engineer
An app for identifying equipment in a way that holds up later. In the App Store in early 2024.
- 2022 → 2023
Principal Financial · UX Lead, Senior Leadership
A product built quietly that later launched as Elevate by Principal. Used AI to help write personas and sort research when the team was short-handed.
- 2022
GE Digital · Sr. UX Researcher / Designer
A program that had been planned for eight years without a result. Our team was the first to get a change built.
- 2020
Liquidation Specialists · Founder & Product Owner
An asset-appraisal startup built to be sold early. It was.
- 2019 → 2020
U.S. Bank · UX Manager, Omnichannel
In-house, managing UX across channels, with one design system used across them.
- 2018
BMW Technology Corp · UX, eMobility
Trained in service design at the Cooper school, then taught it to the BMW UX team and ran it on their electric vehicle program.
- 2017
Thomson Reuters · UX Designer, Artificial Intelligence
Designing AI tools for legal and information services, back when nobody had a job title for that.
- 2013 → 2016
CAKE Service Design & UX · Principal / Consultant
My own consultancy. Service design and UX, often under an agency's name, for Target, Honeywell, Sherwin-Williams, Thomson Reuters, Polaris, Ecolab, Marvin Windows, Fairview, Woodford Reserve, and Herradura.
- 2013 → 2015
Go East → Thread Connected Content · Executive Creative Director
Hired to turn a 50-person print and agency shop, with 3M among its clients, into a digital and social studio. Renamed it Thread, hired award-winning people, and rebuilt how the work got made. Thread was later acquired and is now a division of Kick.
- 2011 → 2013
Luci Visual Curation · Co-founder
A visual curation tool, piloted with Target and Medtronic. Demoed at MinneDemo in 2014.
- 2006 → 2013
Catalyst Studios · Director of Digital, then Partner and Director of UX
In practice, director of almost everything. One of Minnesota's first human-centered design studios. Grew it from one person to 20+, sold it to Initio3i in 2013. People from that team went on to Google, Adobe, and IBM.
- 2005 → 2006
Carmichael Lynch · Sr. Creative Technologist
Sites and applications for Porsche, American Airlines, Gibson Guitars, Harley-Davidson, American Standard, and Jack Link's. The person who could talk to both the creatives and the engineers.
- 2001 → 2004
Bluejay Interactive · Freelance contract developer
Freelancing across the Minneapolis agencies: Fallon, Space150, Atomic Playpen, Campbell Mithun, Treefort, Ham in the Fridge. Few people in town could do advanced Flash then, so I got to set the rate.
- 2000 → 2001
Olson · Interactive Developer
Part of the first web work at Olson: UV Vodka, Phillips, Old Dutch. The UV site earned a One Show Merit in 2002. Olson sold to ICF for $295M in 2014.
- 1999 → ~2012 · side venture
Misplaced Music Radio · Co-founder (with Sam Keenan)
An internet radio station we built from scratch: the server, the playlist software, all of it hand-coded before you could buy any of it. Grew to 80,000 listeners a month, from the Twin Cities to Japan and New York. Before the iPhone, we broadcast live from the Turf Club with a Windows phone streaming over Sprint to our own server. City Pages nominated us for Best Music Media, and we presented an award at its Best of the Twin Cities show. Sam and I ran it until about 2008; Pete Wanamacher ran it from there until it signed off around 2012.
The record
Clients, awards, and where I go deep.
Financial services depth
- U.S. Bank, UX Manager, Omnichannel (in-house)
- Principal Financial, UX & Product Design leadership (in-house, senior)
- Appraisal Dream, fractional Chief AI Officer, appraisal software for U.S. lenders
- U.S. Asset Appraisals, Fractional CTO, valuation tech
- Certified Machinery & Equipment Appraiser (CMEA), NEBB, 2026
Medical, healthcare & industrial
- Medtronic, service design & UX research
- Fairview Health Services, service design & UX
- University of Minnesota, research-side UX
- 3M, agency-side UX across consumer & healthcare
- Ecolab, B2B e-commerce redesign on a new Fjord design kit
- Marvin, UX for the relaunch of a flagship window
- Honeywell, about 300 websites consolidated into 13: content studies, transformation rubrics, taxonomy
- Polaris, interim design leadership for a 3D online vehicle customizer
- Thomson Reuters, how lawyers would use AI inside Westlaw
Awards & recognition
- One Show Merit, 2002 annual, Phillips UV (credited as programmer and music)
- Effie Award, I Love My Cub
- Webby Official Honoree, 2008, Nicole by OPI, Catalyst Studios
- SIGGRAPH recognition, Grain Belt Premium, with Chris Henderson
- Young Guns Award (2006), IFC Porsche Animation
- City Pages Best Music Media nominee, Misplaced Music Radio
- Minnesota Cup 2026 semi-finalist, Appraisal Dream
- Ad Fed Awards, multiple, Phillips UV, Phillips Vodka, Grain Belt, Datalink
Speaking, teaching & mentoring
- Taught at seven schools: Miami Ad School, Brainco, College of Visual Arts, MCAD, The Art Institutes, ITT Tech, Rasmussen
- Panelist, Evanta Minneapolis CIO Executive Summit, 2013, on IT and marketing alignment, alongside the CIO of HealthPartners and the SVP of Marketing at Caribou Coffee
- Speaker: AIGA Minnesota, Hello World: UX, 2012; MinneDemo 16, 2014, demoing Luci
- Nerdery Overnight Website Challenge, 2010 and 2011: 24-hour builds for Minnesota Senior Corps and Minnesota Hands & Voices, finalist in 2011
- AdFed, hosted mentor
- MIMA, board member and technology chair (2010)
Millions in donated labor. Over the years I have given millions of dollars of design and technology work to Minneapolis charities, nonprofits, and arts groups, and put in over $4M of my own money and time. Founding sponsor of regional gaming conventions. Technology director for I Am Kindness and I Am Rescued, 2011 to 2014, running the systems behind senior-home visits and dog adoption days. Nonprofits still get a rate.
What people say
More, word for word.
Here's the thing about Jared, he's brilliant. People claim to be either left brained or right brained. Jared is a hybrid of both. He is a creative thinker and technical wizard. He combines his creative and technical skills for the purpose of solving his client's business problems. His goal is to help his clients, and he succeeds.Mike MuggliSitecore Consultant
His ability to see not only the "big picture," but future implications of plans and decisions really make him unique. His technical expertise is stellar, but he also understands it's crucial how users interact with technology.Kristen FindleyOperating Architect / Chief of Staff
Jared is a strong, strategic partner from start to finish. He seeks excellence at every step, pushes for innovation, and is an excellent communicator.Peggy MunnagleStrategic Consultancy Leader
Six more are on the home page.
Enough about me. What is stuck?
Thirty minutes is usually enough to know whether I can help, and with what.
Rather just ask a question? Email jared.lukes@gmail.com or call (612) 418-4910.