About Me

Who I am

I grew up on the east side of San Jose, California. I took my BA degree in the Environmental Studies program at the University of California at Santa Cruz, focusing in natural history. I have lived all over the west: Santa Cruz, Crater Lake National Park, Seattle, Sacramento, Oakland, and now Park City, Utah.

I am a Humanist and an enthusiast of both science and technology. I am fascinated by the diversity of life on earth, and I find great joy in wild places and things, especially birds and apes.

What I Do

I have a passion for technologies that promise to improve the quality of human lives, and I typically work in some form of technology evangelism. I am a founder of AVA, Inc, a Swiss-American company making beautiful products for the professionally-installed Smart Home industrry. Formerly, I was Vice President of Education and Support at Control4. In the past I have worked in product leadership, product strategist and product management, as a developer evangelist, and as a technical instructor. I remain keenly interested in the culture of free innovation. I live at the intersection of Technology and Liberal Arts.

I believe that marketing must connect with people personally. My ability to create product stories strong enough to convert casual customers into loyal followers has repeatedly earned me great respect from my colleagues over the years. I inspire people to be enthusiastic about otherwise hard-to-understand technologies, whether through technical marketing, training, or product definition.

A brand is much, much more than a mark or logo. Companies are their brands. Long term customers adhere to a company for more than the products the company supplies them. Customers seek to affiliate themselves with an entity they can trust, relate to, and believe in. Those emotional qualities are the foundation of a strong brand.

Why I Do It

I love technology. I’m inspired by the people who work to solve big challenges in information technology. And certainly, the biggest problems today are social and economic rather than technical. This requires changes in culture and technology. Technology needs to become more Humanistic.