(Last updated February 15, 2021)
Welcome to
the personal section of my web site, where you get to learn all about me, or at
least as much as I'd care to share on the Internet. Hopefully this short bio will
allow you to get to know me a little better.
Vital Statistics: I'm a pretty average-looking middle-aged white guy with
laser-corrected eyes, of mixed European descent, and missing an appendix as of 2006.
I went to Princeton, work as a business and technology consultant, drive an Acura and a Porsche,
live in a nice suburban colonial with a wonderful wife named Kim, and spend a lot of
my free time lusting after expensive Nikon and Olympus camera lenses. I also play tennis and volleyball,
lift weights, go hiking and bicycling when possible, write my own electronic music,
read quite a bit, and enjoy traveling to various tropical destinations.
For those familiar with Myers-Briggs personality
classifications, I am an INTJ. At heart I'm a creative, analytical generalist who likes to work alone but
has spent a good portion of my career as a managing executive. My analytical side goes wild during occasional bouts of
assessing whether my camera gear is good enough and what should replace it, or when it is time to build a new computer. I use spreadsheets, a lot - but I also
doodle and compose music. When I first got an Apple Pencil and iPad Pro, one of the main draws was being able to save my doodles more easily. A former coworker
of mine (who was the COO and went to Yale) said that doodling was a sign of genius, a sentiment with which I was of course in complete agreement.
Abridged Curriculum Vitae: I was valedictorian at Upper Dublin High School, and I have an A.B. in Molecular
Biology from Princeton University
(class of '95). After I
graduated I worked as a technical consultant at Formal Systems, Inc. (now Pedagogue Solutions), then I was a consultant with Coretech Consulting Group, Inc., which evolved into
a stint in the MIS department at Comcast Cellular, which company was then acquired
by Southwestern Bell and has since
been spun off as part of Cingular and may now be part of AT&T.
That unpleasant experience led to my joining PlanSponsorExchange.com when it had
less than 10 employees, for something quite new and different. PlanSponsorExchange.com became InvestorForce, Inc. in 2000; I became the Chief Technology Officer in 2005, and remained until I left in 2020 after we divested a portion
of the business to Morningstar in 2006, were acquired by
MSCI in 2013, and were later divested from MSCI to a private equity outfit called Resurgens Technology Partners in 2018 and merged
with Investment Metrics LLC, InvestorForce's chief competitor and a company Resurgens acquired in 2017.
During my time at PlanSponsorExchange-InvestorForce-MSCI-Investment Metrics, we went from a tiny 10-person startup to an acquisition-crazy 180-person dot-com startup, down to a more reasonably-sized 40-person startup
following the "Secretaries Day Massacre" in 2001, to a small piece of a 3500-person sprawling global fintech company with an investment bank's bureaucratic genetic lineage
and a headquarters at the World Trade Center in New York,
to one half of a 60-person boutique fintech firm based in Pennsylvania and Connecticut. It was quite a ride. In one of those very surreal moments in life, my last day with Investment Metrics was March 13th,
2020 - which was also the last day in the office for all of the employees, thanks to the sudden and dramatic shift to working from home because of the covid-19 pandemic. I was
actually one of the only people in the office that day, packing up my last couple boxes of personal items. My grand "sort of retirement" party was postponed two months,
and then implicitly cancelled, because who wants to attend a going-away party for someone a year or two later? I've never really been one for parties, so no great loss.
Professionally, I used to spend a great deal of my time trying to do too much with too little. Now
I now work for myself, and part-time at that, which is a much more agreeable setup.
My undergraduate thesis at Princeton was on the origin of evolutionary constraints,
an examination and rebuke of the more extreme theories put forth by proponents of
structuralism in biology (like anyone cares at this point). My background in evolutionary
biology and science in general has given me a lot of insights on the future of technology and organizational
dynamics. I used to do basically everything associated with interactive media, whether
that was low-level programming, content authoring, soundtrack composition, interface
design, project administration or client liason work. Now I don't do any coding
at all and manage client relationships and various technical personnel. The next phases in my
plan for Total World Domination were happening without me even really noticing (I
didn't have time to notice). Think Michael Corleone, without all the literal blood (Sonny had already gotten fired years ago).
Anakin Skywalker was another good pop culture comparison,
although I hope I don't turn to the dark side as I age, or maybe secretly I do.
I also think regularly about my Plan for Total Karmic Enlightenment
and wonder if these two plans will conflict at some point.
Random Pursuits
I watch some TV, including sports, mostly the NFL and tennis majors, although Bull Riding is surprisingly interesting to watch (ouch).
I do play my share of mind-numbing PC games, mainly older Call of Duty titles (because the new ones suck), and read up on philosophy, particle physics, or whatever else I
happen to want at the moment. I also like to travel to warm, sunny places with palm
trees, beaches, and rainforests, and take pictures of them. Once in a while I wonder
what life would be like if I had stuck to my original plan of collecting large exotic
beetles in the Amazon basin. Maybe I will go back to it some day, given that beetles still hold a special place in my heart.
It is likewise possible that some of those big beetles will spontaneously turn into flying pigs in mid-air;
I do enjoy taking pictures of bugs, and when they're big
they just make it easier to fill a frame well. As an introvert it is all too easy to anthropomorphize insects, imagining that their
silent march through life masks great thoughts and philosophical pondering in their tiny little brains. Much more likely is that they are just hungry.
In case you've detected some kind of pattern here--volleyball, convertible, computer
expertise, sunny climes--it's true, it would be nice to eventually end up in a tropical
location where the trade winds blow gently all year, preferably with a beachfront
house, a Jeep Wrangler and maybe sports car in the driveway, and a very low-latency high-bandwidth connection
to the global network. That comes with the caveat that I've become a bit more laid-back
over the years, and again, the end result described here might be at odds with the
Plan for Total Karmic Enlightenment. Oh, and you can send me an email.
