I was born in New York, but pretty much grew up in South Orange, New Jersey. I grew up a full blown computer hacker and did a lot of morally questionable (borderline illegal) stuff. — No kidding, probably should have called prison and made reservations for myself.
Early on, I experienced a lot growing up a “geek” in the public school system. I was bullied, a loner, and didn’t have a lot of true friends. Later in high school, I went on to develop a great friend network and had great successes in my geek-career that led me into business at a young age.
After graduating Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey, I attended Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. There I got my early start in business working for a start-up. It was the mid-1990’s, part of the dot-com era. I quickly became an organizational leader there and moved to a company called Gearworks where I, along with a great friend , Keith Lauver, grew the business from nothing to a good sized start-up.
I then got to work with another great friend Todd Krautkremer at Gearworks before we sold the business to Xora. After that I went through a whirlwind as my career took off. I moved to Shavlik Technologies and sold that business to VMware. After being at the tech-giant for a few years, we sold the business unit back out from VMware to LANdesk where we again focused on rapid growth. During my time at LANdesk, I worked with a number of acquisitions, traveled the world with global development centers and grew the business unit substantially.
After deciding the stress of such extensive travel was too much for myself and my family, I moved on to lead the R&D teams at Code42 in Minneapolis.
I’m a husband to my wife, Sarah. I’m a father to 3 kids, Will, Jack and Zoe — all who are growing up so darn fast. I have definitely not been perfect, but am pretty proud of my role as a husband, father, and business leader.
A Gift from your Father 