I have over 20 years of experience in the architecture industry with about 14 years as co-founder of a residential architecture firm that grew to four principal architects and a staff of fifteen. As president of the firm, I earned my MBA to design and run all aspects of the business side, while my partners did the architectural work.
I also became familiar with interior design and construction firms as we partnered with owners of these businesses. In a related business venture for eight years, I worked in the real estate industry. I've worked intimately with business owners in landscape architecture and home design.
I've spent over 11 years across my career in technology & product related positions, starting as a rentable "geek" in college at a small startup. Later in my career, I consulted for a Fortune 100 company of about sixty-thousand people as a technology business analyst, scrum master and product owner. I worked as director of product management at a big-data company with about a hundred employees.
I've brought a significant technology aspect to every role over the past 25+ years. Across my career, I've collaborated very closely with UI/UX, graphic design, web design and product design in addition to software development teams.
In 2003, immediately after graduation, I co-founded an architectural firm with two architects. With zero clients, but with the hope that a business plan had identified an opportunity to profitably fill a need in the community, the three of us quit our jobs and started a boutique architectural design firm.
Over the next fourteen years, I ran all business aspects of the firm: finance, sales & marketing, operations, client service, HR, and IT. This was my full-time role; the only business functions I outsourced were legal council & taxes. Later, when I just got too busy, I outsourced our IT network infrastructure (like I mentioned above, I worked as a rentable "geek" in college so initially I even ran our internal network, file, email & web server) and hired an executive assistant.
The firm doubled revenue each year for five years till the recession hit in 2008. We focused our work on the impact our designs had on the lives of our clients, Life-Centered Design. It impacted everything we did in the firm. Our measure of success was how we had created a space that was changing the life of each client. This focus was very fulfilling to me and the team. It increased the value we brought to our clients and helped enable us to increase our fees even in the economic downturn. This was key to our survival and enabled us to continue to survive the recession and beyond.
As we emerged from the recession, my partners bought my equity when I wanted to continue to grow the company but they wanted to keep things as they were. By the time I exited the partnership, our firm had grown fees by 23X, had increased profit margins from 12% to 28%, had four principal architects, and had served over 1,000 clients.
Next, I consulted for a Fortune 100 company as a business analyst and later as a product manager in Texas. I then moved to Boston to direct product management for a tech company and was laid off nine months later.
In 2017, I started Quanteon to bring the fulfillment and financial prosperity our architectural team experienced to other creatives and design-related firms. My clients see me as a key part of the team as we work together to profitably find and fulfill their Noble Purposes.
BELIEFS
I believe that teams achieve greatness when they're unified in pursuing something larger than themselves. Which is why I help to build vision & bridges between people to achieve their common noble purpose. I find fulfillment in forming personal connections with others as we push the boundaries of what’s possible and become a high-performance team.
WEAKNESSES & STRENGTHS
While we all have strengths, every trait that makes us shine comes with its shadow side. I'll share constructive criticisms I solicited from past business partners, employees and from my wife. Some weaknesses they've described are: intense, distracted, pensive, taciturn, ponderous, dogmatic, and unassertive. Understanding others' experiences with me has opened my eyes to blind spots and helped me to grow and adapt.
The positive words partners, clients, friends & family use to describe me are: perceptive, caring, objective, capable, persistent, reliable, thorough, curious, wise, trustworthy, logical, empathetic, adaptable, strategic, patient, resilient, thoughtful, focused, humorous, resourceful, pragmatic, open-minded and collaborative.
Deep focus, the ability to quickly grasp things, understanding why things work the way they do, and optimizing outcomes are some of my divinely given superpowers.
I see connections & patterns. Bringing simplicity & understanding to what can feel chaotic & complex comes naturally to me. It's energizing for me to analyze symptoms, explain what’s contributing most to a situation, find the best way forward and optimize the impact.
People see me as perceptive, but I'm simply seeing them, listening deeply to them, putting myself in their position and asking questions to really understand.
THE BACKSTORY
Science, math & technology seemed to come easily to me in school. If I listened in class I caught on pretty quickly and could perform well. It wasn't because I was "smart" or "good at STEM." I focused on what was taught to boil things down to ideas within a holistic concept of how the world works. By doing this, I could apply what I was taught in novel ways. So, I optimized my free time, minimized homework and consistently fell in the A to B+ range.
At the time it seemed like a good use of my talents to optimize free time and grades. But, I now put these gifts to better & more fulfilling use as I work with creative clients to provide insight, navigate tricky business quandaries, and create structure within the business.
Taking a circuitous route through college, I earned several degrees. This included an associate's degree in engineering, one undergraduate degree in general studies, another in business management, and finally an MBA.
I worked full-time in technology through most my college years. I liked my work and found that I enjoyed learning almost every topic in my various classes across campus. But that was a problem; I found it quite difficult to pick a major. I explored psychology, political science, religion, math, computer science, and anthropology before settling on mechanical engineering where I felt I could use my analytical skills.
But I wasn't passionate enough about engineering to make a career out of it, so I switched to business management. My senior year, as I created a business plan for an entrepreneurial development class, my coursework really energized me. I found myself losing track of time in learning and discovery and was passionate about this!
The business plan was for an architectural firm. With two architects, I entered a business plan competition. Though we were eliminated in the semi-finals, we decided to start the firm.