I have been taking computers apart since I was a teenager in the late 90s. It started with a Packard Bell, dial-up modems, and a program called Navigator that was meant to keep children out of parts of the system. I found a key combination that crashed it and dropped me on the desktop. That was the first time I understood that what a system is supposed to do and what it actually does are two different things, and I have been pulling at that thread ever since.

Curiosity took me toward security, because that is where understanding failure modes mattered more than theory. I sometimes describe myself as a recovering hacker. There is nothing romantic in that. Learning how systems fail is simply what shaped how I design, secure and govern them today.

That period included interviews with people who defined late-90s hacker culture, among them John Vransevich (JP), Kent Browne (Hack Phreak), Carolyn Meinel (Happy Hacker), Eric Ginorio (Bronco Buster), Marc Maiffret (sn1per), Jodi Jones (Venomous) and Patrick Gregory (MostHated). It also included conversations with the FBI and the Secret Service, where I was an inquisitive explorer rather than an adversary. The goal then was the same as it is now: protect the integrity and confidentiality of information without deceit and without causing harm.

Over time, exploration turned into responsibility. Security became the foundation, and I moved from testing systems to building and defending them at scale, in environments where reliability was not optional. For the past twenty years I have built and operated security systems for organizations around the world, and have probably protected something that belongs to you along the way.

Across migrations, security programs and day-to-day operations, one pattern kept repeating. Most failures are not technical first. They come from unclear ownership, weak preparation, and gaps in how teams carry context from one person to the next. That observation is what most of the writing on this site is about.

As my career progressed, my focus moved upstream. I still understand the technical detail, but the value I add now is in preparation, sequencing and judgment. I help teams reduce surprises, surface risks early, and connect technical signals to business outcomes before they become visible problems. That is the work I am drawn to.

Today I split my time between SaaS development, advisory work, and vCIO and CTO-style engagements. I care less about heroics and more about building systems and teams that hold up under pressure.

If you work in cybersecurity, managed services or SaaS, and you value clear thinking, honest execution and fewer surprises, we will likely work well together.