About Me

This autobiography was recorded into OpenAI’s Whisper, cleaned up by ChatGPT 4, punched up by manual editing, and spoken by an ElevenLabs voice clone of myself from early 2023. I give it an A-.

I was born in 1972 on Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Georgia, where my father was stationed.

My first years were spent operating out of the magnificence of a small, white single-wide trailer. Eventually we upgraded to a positively palatial double-wide trailer. I had my own toy box! These trailers were nestled on the grounds of a Paso Fino horse farm named the Totem Pole Ranch, which my parents managed. The sounds, sights, and smells of horses and all manner of other animals were the backdrop to my childhood.

When I was 8, my family moved to the midwest… Fall River, Kansas… where we lasted only 6 months before my parents had had enough and moved us again to a small village in Central Pennsylvania called Grantville. It was here that my dad partnered with his father, my pop-pop, in selling Rainbow Rexair vacuum cleaners. Yet for my parents the call of the horse training life lingered, and when I was in the sixth grade my parents bought a small farm where they have now resided for over four decades. This farm, christened the “New Day Equestrian Center”, also houses the “Capital Area Therapeutic Riding Association”.

So while my childhood was filled with horses and hippotherapy, what would’ve been paradise for any horse-crazed teen was mostly an annoyance to me. My love for electronic games, gizmos, and science fiction contrasted greatly with my parents’ equine inclinations. I could ride and feed a horse, and certainly muck a stall just as well as any horse-crazy teenager, but my heart was never in it. I was an Atari Club member for crying out loud! Ah, the 80s.

My mother and I do share an interest that has spanned my entire life– music. From the second grade onwards I have been training to play various musical instruments— the cello, the piano, and the drums. My passion for music led me to attend Millersville University of Pennsylvania, in Lancaster PA, for music education, with cello as my major instrument. So of course, after receiving my Bachelor’s degree in Music Ed, I went back into technology. Makes complete sense!

After drifting around a few temp jobs, exploring my options, and enjoying the glorious 90s, I eventually wound up on the phones in dial-up tech support for an internet service provider called MindSpring. I moved from the phones to the tech writer team where I stayed for about 10 years, most of which were spent in Lancaster, PA near my alma mater, Millersville.

As a tech writer I made help docs and user guides for some of the most iconic apps of the early internet. Eudora, Mosaic, Netscape, Usenet, and more. Do you remember Gopher? I do!

My professional life then took a significant turn as I moved to Atlanta, the headquarters of the merged MindSpring and Earthlink in 2005, and shortly after became a product manager responsible for several aspects of EarthLink’s services.

From EarthLink, my professional journey led me to a startup, Vitrue, where we built a social media marketing platform for large brands. The work was challenging and exciting, especially when Facebook and Twitter came into the picture. After a few years, we were acquired by Oracle, prompting a shift in my role to the integration of various software into Oracle’s product portfolio.

After dedicating three years to Oracle, I decided to take a break to focus on my personal projects and family. We moved to Washington, DC, and my wife and I welcomed our son, Hugo, into our lives in 2017. He’s the best kid ever.

Over the next few years, I worked to build a startup I founded called “Vaudience,” focusing on gathering feedback and reactions from attendees at live events. Unfortunately, the onset of the pandemic in 2020 brought this project to an abrupt halt.

But amazingly, my work with Vaudience had prepared me in many ways for the next phase of my career, VP of Product for Accelevents, an event management platform.

An all-in-one platform, Accelevents caters to both in-person and virtual events of all sizes. Whether it’s badging software, check-ins, ticketing, registration, or facilitating virtual conferences, Accelevents provides the entire spectrum of services. Since 2021 the Accelevents ride has been both intellectually stimulating and enjoyable, filled with a multitude of intriguing challenges and problems that keep my curious mind occupied.

All the while, music remained an essential part of my life. In 2001 I became involved in “Song Fight”, an online songwriting competition, eventually becoming the site owner and one of the managers of weekly songwriting and music production competitions. I love Song Fight, and I intend to keep it going until I’m too deaf to hear any of the music, and even past that.

So, obviously, music continues to be an intense passion. And in the backdrop of my musical fervor, a new fascination has recently captured my interest that has the promise to let my tech jones power my art jones – generative AI.

This captivating technology, which can generate text, images, and even audio, has opened up a new avenue for me as an artist. I’m exploring ways to utilize generative AI to amplify my creative capabilities, manipulating words and images as one would shape clay.

We’re still in the early stages of this technology, but the pace of advancement reminds me of the nascent days of the internet. We’re witnessing a similar scenario unfolding with AI, even down to the investment bubble.

While the rapid progress is exhilarating, it also, understandably, invokes a certain degree of apprehension for people. Yet, in my view, the potential for wondrous advancements far outweighs the prospects of disastrous outcomes. I’m a technology optimist, and I believe in Rebecca Solnit’s idea that the dark unknown holds infinite potential for hope.

As I continue to experiment with new technology, mostly AI and things adjacent, I hope to share some of these explorations on this website. If you’re keen to discuss any of these topics or simply want to connect, please reach out! I enjoy meeting new people and I LOVE talking shop.