About
A builder who learned to lead, and never stopped building.
Twenty-five years bringing new teams, new systems, and new ideas to life, the messy first stretch where the org does not know what it wants yet and the tech does not exist yet. R&D engineer, then design and UX leader, now AI architect.
How I read a problem
The through-line, if you only have 30 seconds.
- I treat every project like it is my own money. No wild goose chases on someone else's dime.
- I will speak truth to power about 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. When something wobbles, the heat lands on me, not the team.
I read businesses as systems of flows.
Where labor, capital, and information enter, where margin leaks, which nodes are automatable. That lens is the through-line for the AI work: find the step where an agent changes the unit economics, then build it.
Layers and frosting, in that order.
Work ethic is the layers. Ideas are the frosting. Both, but in that order. I will not let three people do what two can do, and I will not run a wild goose chase on someone else's dime.
I match people, not commodity skills.
Teams I have built dovetail by backstory and temperament: who will sand whose edges, who will surface the quiet member's idea, who will tell the truth about a project that is dying. That is the actual moat.
I come by it honestly.
Descendant of clockmakers on both sides of the family. Tolerance and system health are in the blood: the instinct to chase a millisecond drift through a pipeline, to ask why the gear binds at the edges, to calibrate before going live. That pattern was in the house a few generations before me.
The arc
Twenty-five years, the arc not the resume.
R&D tech, to design and UX lead, to AI architect. Leadership and team-building threaded into every gig along the way. Started as a builder.
- 2026 → now
Appraisal Dream · CAIO
AI-enhanced SaaS & Agentic MCP tools.
- 2024 → 2025
AssetTrax / Dataref · VP of AI
Lead architect of scalable computer-vision systems and industrial RAGs, edge OCR pipelines, document classification at scale, prototype→production delivery.
- 2023 → 2024
Asset Verify · Founder & lead AI engineer
Created a new market category around defensible asset identification. App Store launch Q1 2024.
- 2022 → 2023
Principal Financial · UX Lead, Senior Leadership
Stealth product (later launched as Elevate by Principal). Pioneered AI-augmented persona & research synthesis when staffing was thin.
- 2022
GE Digital · Sr. UX Researcher / Designer
Broke an 8-year innovation stalemate. First team to actually deliver technical change after years of failed planning.
- 2020
Liquidation Specialists · Founder & Product Owner
Planned early-exit asset-appraisal startup. Reached profitability in 4 months against an 18-month target; sold and rebranded inside six.
- 2019 → 2020
U.S. Bank · UX Manager, Omnichannel
Financial services, in-house. Multi-channel design system across product surfaces.
- 2018
BMW Technology Corp · UX, eMobility
Cooper School of Design service-design training cohort. Led the practical transposition for the BMW UX org afterward.
- 2017
Thomson Reuters · UX Designer, Artificial Intelligence
Early UX-for-AI work in legal & information services, before AI/UX was a defined discipline.
- 2013 → 2016
CAKE Service Design & UX · Principal / Consultant
White-label service design and UX for Target, Honeywell, Sherwin-Williams, Thomson Reuters, Polaris, Ecolab, Marvin Windows, Fairview, Woodford Reserve, Herradura. The "layers (work ethic) + frosting (ideas)" framing comes from here.
- 2013 → 2014
Go East → Thread Connected Content · Executive Creative Director
Brought in to flip a 50-person traditional print/agency shop (3M and others) into a digital-first social & micro-media studio. Rebranded Go East as Thread Connected Content; recruited award-winning talent; rebuilt the production pipeline. Thread was later acquired and now operates as "Thread, a division of Kick."
- 2011 → 2013
Luci Visual Curation · Co-founder
SaaS pilots with Target and Medtronic. Presented at MinneDemo.
- 2006 → 2013
Catalyst Studios · Partner / Director of UX
Built MN's first human-centered design boutique. 1 → 20+ people. Sold to Initio3i (2012). Alumni now at Google, Adobe, IBM.
- 2005 → 2006
Carmichael Lynch · Sr. Creative Technologist
Award-winning sites and applications for Porsche, American Airlines, Gibson Guitars, Harley-Davidson, American Standard, Jack Link's. Bridged creative and engineering teams across a powerhouse agency.
- 2001 → 2004
Bluejay Interactive · Freelance contract developer
Independent contractor across the Minneapolis interactive scene: Fallon, Space150, Atomic Playpen, Campbell Mithun, Treefort, Ham in the Fridge. One of only a handful of devs in town with advanced Flash skills at the time, set the rate, not the inverse.
- 2001 → ~2008 · side venture
Misplaced Music Radio · Co-founder (with Sam Keenan)
Built an online radio station from scratch, distribution server, playlist software, all hand-coded before there were stacks for any of it. Grew to 80, 000 monthly listeners with a footprint reaching from the Twin Cities to Japan and New York. Pre-iPhone live remote broadcasts from venues like the Turf Club via a Windows phone streaming over Sprint data to our own server. Eventually retired the home-grown stack for purpose-built Windows-XP curation software.
- 2000 → 2001
Olson · Interactive Developer
Launched Olson's digital offering (UV Vodka, Phillips, Old Dutch). Won at The One Show. Olson sold for $294M in 2014.
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, CAIO, platform reach across U.S. banking
- U.S. Asset Appraisals, Fractional CTO, valuation tech
- Certified equipment appraiser (CMEA-track)
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
- Honeywell, UX research & service design
Awards & recognition
- The One Show, Phillips UV
- Effie Award, I Love My Cub
- Webby Award, OPI Nails
- SIGGRAPH recognition, Grainbelt Premium
- Young Guns Award (2006), IFC Porsche Animation
- Ad Fed Awards (multiple)
Speaking, teaching & mentoring
- Faculty: Miami Ad School, Brainco, CVA, ITT Tech, Rasmussen
- Speaker: MCAD, AIGA (Experimental Design), MinneDemo
- Evanta CIO Summit, panel
- AdFed, hosted mentor
- MIMA, hosted mentor and board (2010)
$4M+ personally invested in Minneapolis charities, nonprofits, and arts groups. Founding sponsor of regional gaming conventions.
That is the background. Now tell me what is stuck.
A 30 minute call, no deck, no pitch. We figure out which of the six ways to work fits, and whether I am the right person for it.