Beyond the Resume
Twenty years of program and delivery work tells you what I've built. It doesn't tell you much about who's doing the building. I live in Westminster, Colorado, with my family, and the version of me here is closer to the real one than anything on the career page.
The Reset
Camping and hunting clear my mind in a way nothing else does. New terrain, new problems to solve, no notifications, no calendars. Just weather and landscape making the decisions instead of me. There's a clarity that comes from being somewhere that doesn't care about your org chart or your delivery metrics. It resets the baseline.
I don't think I know how to stop building systems. So once or twice a season, I go somewhere there's nothing left to build. No strategy decks, no governance forums, no quarterly planning cycles. Just terrain and weather and the kind of quiet that reminds me the best leaders know when to step away from the work so the work can breathe.
The Worlds I've Built
For the last twelve years I've been building an entire fantasy and science fiction universe from the ground up. Three interconnected series, its own history, its own rules.
Characters I've written for over a decade make decisions I didn't plan. Plotlines resolve in ways that feel earned rather than engineered. When a world has enough internal consistency, it starts generating its own logic. You stop directing and start listening.
It teaches patience. It teaches you that the best systems are the ones you don't have to force.
What I Make With My Hands
Woodworking, 3D printing, laser engraving. I picked each one up because I wanted to make something specific and couldn't find it anywhere else. That's usually how it starts. A shelf that needed to exist, a prototype that wouldn't materialize on its own, a gift that meant more when it came from my shop than from a store.
There's a satisfaction in building something physical that sitting at a desk can't replicate. You measure wrong, the thing doesn't fit. No amount of planning saves you from a bad cut. And when it does fit, when the tolerances land and the finish looks right, that's a kind of completion that's hard to find anywhere else.
The Real World
I've been with my wife since we were eighteen. Married twenty years, together for thirty. That's a long time to share a life with someone, and it teaches you things about patience, compromise, and showing up that no leadership book covers. She's the reason the house still has a functioning calendar and the kids know what a turn signal is for.
Two teenage girls, one terrier named Maple. Our house runs on negotiation, humor, and the occasional reminder that not every problem needs to be solved in an evening. There are sleepovers to coordinate, driving lessons to survive, and a lawn that never quite stays ahead of the season.
They keep the whole thing in perspective. The work matters. The people at home matter more.