Every chapter is the same job in a different uniform: complex system, high stakes, people who need to move together. Here's the arc.
Lead signals intelligence analyst supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Force protection and predictive analysis for the warfighter during active combat operations — tight deadlines, ambiguous information, no room for error. Trained in Persian Farsi at the Defense Language Institute.
Cultural advisor and senior liaison in an active combat zone, in service of highly specialized overseas intelligence operations. Directed senior-level negotiations that produced international partnership agreements — infrastructure, security, economic development. Bridging worlds that don't speak to each other, under real pressure.
Fifteen years of increasing scope: led human-terrain analysis over Afghanistan used for kinetic and strategic operations; ran a branch of scientists whose predictive landslide models supported the Nepal earthquake response; led a global office of 180+ people with a $100M annual budget; converted $20M+ a year from dying legacy systems into cloud platforms; led transformation and readiness for a 1,000-person organization moving to NGA's new western campus. Finished as Senior GEOINT Officer for Political Geography — NGA's senior officer for foreign place names and boundaries, and Executive Secretary of the US Board on Geographic Names Foreign Names Committee. Named NGA's Human Geographer of the Year.
Concurrent with operational duties: seven years teaching leadership at NGA's college. Built the curriculum, coached executives, developed accelerator programs, and instructed hundreds of leaders agency-wide. Master's in Management, Strategy, and Leadership from Michigan State's Broad College of Business — the classroom version of what the career already was.
Left a stable senior career to build something from zero: a medically directed strength, nutrition, and hormone clinic in Chesterfield, Missouri. I run everything on the business side — sales, operations, billing, partnerships, facilities, and the training and nutrition team. Different system, same discipline: internal optimization combined with external habit change. Nothing changes if nothing changes — it's painted on our gym wall.
Advisory board member at CDG Engineers. Executive board member at CHADS Coalition for Mental Health, where I co-led the CEO succession when the founders retired. Board member at the Special Operations Charity Network. The accelerator's chair just moved to the other side of the table.
"Nothing changes if nothing changes."PAINTED ON THE GYM WALL — TRUE FOR A 1,000-PERSON AGENCY AND TRUE FOR YOUR HEALTH AFTER 40