I build for the handoff.
I document up front and build so nothing assumes I’ll always be the one running it. A project has a start and an end, and the work should transition to the people who operate it. That’s what frees me to go do the next thing.
The expensive problems fall between specialties. That’s where I work.
I’m a technical program leader with the depth to read the code, design the system and write it. Every few years the tools turn over, and I go after each one, learning what it can actually do and making it fit the work in front of me. Right now that’s AI. I tend to go first into the part nobody has mapped yet, then bring people in behind me.
How I work
Three things show up in everything below
I keep a human in the loop where judgment belongs.
AI widens what I can research, compare and flag. It doesn’t decide which of five findings matters, or where the real decision is hiding. That judgment is what turns capability into a result.
I work in the seams.
I’ve sat on several sides of the same table. The costly problems are the ones each group reasonably assumes someone else has. I’ve done enough of each job to know what each side is likely to miss.
Case studies
Each one follows the same shape: the situation, what I decided, why that instead of the obvious alternative, what changed, and what I’d do differently.
- Professional · Compliance automationAutomated compliance framework monitoringScheduled AI tasks that watch framework sources for change, compare what changed against our own controls, and report with a proposed impact level.The callThe impact level is a proposal, not a verdict. Everything still reaches a person.
- Professional · Compliance toolingsoc2audit: evidence collection as a CLISOC 2 evidence collection is the same work every quarter. I turned it into a tool, and deliberately stopped short of making it unattended.The callA CLI before a scheduled job, because the review is the point.
- Professional · PlanningRoadmap and capacity planning toolRoadmap data in through Productboard or CSV, team capacity applied, timelines calculated per team, with baselines and scenario comparison.The callMake the alternative cheap to compare, so the argument stops being abstract.
- Volunteer · InfrastructureRetiring a decade of volunteer-built hostingOne aging server carried roughly two hundred chapter websites, the organization’s DNS and its mail routing. I retired it rather than rebuild it.The callThe right answer wasn’t a better server. It was less server.
- Volunteer · IdentityIdentity governance across rotating administratorsRoughly a hundred Microsoft 365 tenants, run by volunteer administrators who rotate every two years.The callDesign for turnover instead of around it.
Background
Two decades in central IT at UC San Diego. A major research university with a medical center, where I worked across six different business domains and learned systems from the code up. Since then, I’ve owned compliance and run technical programs for a higher-ed SaaS company. Outside work, I volunteer the same skills for a statewide nonprofit.
- 2021 to nowHigher-ed SaaS · Senior Program ManagerGRC and compliance (SOC 2 Type II, TX-RAMP, HECVAT), technical program management, and operational process work for a higher-ed SaaS company.
- 20+ yearsUC San Diego · Developer to program managerCentral IT for a major research university with an academic medical center, across six business domains. Java middleware for SSO and mainframe integration; business analysis on procurement data flows; then led teams through replacing mainframes with new enterprise systems, including PeopleSoft integrations and the payroll ledger.
- DegreeMAS, Convergent Systems EngineeringUC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, Architecture-Based Enterprise Systems Engineering specialization. Coursework included Complexity and Large Scale Systems, Enterprise Architecting, Engineering Essentials for Open Distributed Systems, and Patterns for Enterprise Architecting. Read about the program. (opens in a new tab)
- VolunteerDaughters of the American RevolutionVolunteer Information Specialist Chair at the California state level: websites, DNS and Microsoft 365 for roughly two hundred chapters.
If your hardest problem is the one nobody owns, let’s talk.
The best way to reach me is a message on LinkedIn.