A Long History... And a Long List

Jun 28, 2024

3 min read

In every job I've had over the last 30 years, my focus has been the user. In that focus, I've done a great many things and held a number of titles: Support, QC, Product Evangelist, Product Specialist, Product Manager, Brand Manager, Technical Sales Support, Demo Guy, Lead QC/Feature Designer, Director of Web Development, Senior User Experience Architect, and Director of User Experience.

Even in my very first technical job working as phone technical support, within a few months, I was tasked with defining the feature set and user interface of the new versions of the software for which I was providing support.

Although UX has been the through line, I've done a great many other things as a part of my journey. I've been trained to deal with potentially hostile press. I've gone on press tours to promote newly released software all over the US and abroad. I've designed features, interfaces, and even full products for image-based, vector-based, and 3D design software. I managed a team of developers inside a large company, completely redesigning both the client-facing websites and custom software systems used by hundreds of employees at call centers and document processing facilities, all HIPPA compliant. I've been the go-to guy when sales needs someone technical to convince the client that we got this. I've appeared on TV and in countless trade shows demoing software. I've traveled to 37 cities all over the US doing software seminars. I've been a UCLA instructor teaching 3D graphics. I've written software documentation, specifications, business plans, and press packets. Although I wouldn't call myself a developer, I've written software in Visual Basic, VB dot net, C++, C sharp, Objective C, Java, and Swift. I've built websites using HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, MySQL, and more. I've written SQL stored procedures for accelerating and optimizing report generation and support services. I've even run a company maker space and designed, 3D Printed, soldered, programmed, and assembled special client projects. And I've been branded "evangelist" for just about every new technology along the way.

In all of that, the user was the focus. In some cases, it was building things so the user could easily and intuitively succeed in their task. In other cases, it was building things so that users would find things and do things that made the business successful. When the work was most satisfying, it did both.

In the interest of finishing this portfolio, I'm simply going to list below the things I've worked on over the years. If you're curious and any of them spark an interest, please don't hesitate to reach out. :)

This long list is not comprehensive but should give you some idea of the depth and breadth of my experience.