Consider this a kind of ‘conversational resume’, like what you’d get if you quizzed me in person on my work history. We’re going to work backwards in time here. (If you want the formal ‘toot your own horn’ resume, here you go.)
A Glorious AI Self-Study Sabbatical
My work since leaving Verizon in June 2023 is largely documented in AI Experiments and Experiment Ideas (and this entire site more generally). Here are some details on my activities during this sabbatical and my AI research interests.
Verizon
I spent 6 years at Verizon (‘17 - ‘23) doing management for a couple of products that got the Verizon Business Group into the AI / ML space (this group sells products to B2B customers, not part of the consumer group that most people think of when they hear ‘Verizon’).
The role was classic product management, interacting with a large group of stakeholders (like really large, about 25 different teams!) at a big company, as well as managing several vendors. I also got quite a bit of experience designing and deploying Google Cloud Platform AI / ML services in a B2B context.
The job was my introduction to the AI space, and regularly meeting with companies that were applying AI was a great opportunity to view the landscape of activity. But the more I learned the more I wanted to get really hands-on. In June of 2023 I left Verizon to dig into AI full-time. Here’s the skinny on that move.
Perfect Sense (Brightspot)
Prior to joining Verizon I was at Perfect Sense (now Brightspot) for 7 years. I was with the company as it grew from about 40 people to 130. I did an interesting combination of B2B product management for the in-house content management and digital asset management systems that we sold and consulting work for Perfect Sense customers.
I learned a lot about the content management and editorial space, as well as handling client engagements in an end-to-end consulting role (doing proposals, drafting contracts, project budgeting and planning, and fulfillment). It was also my first in-depth exposure to building cloud-based products.
(It was also a welcome break from working in the AOL big-company bureaucracy. Everyone owes it to themselves to work in a variety of places from small to large; it helps immensely to be able to compare different styles of management, different ways of structuring an organization, and the like.)
AOL
I spent a decade (!) at AOL, starting right in the AOL Time-Warner heyday. AOL was trying to get into the streaming content business, and needed help understanding the world of hardware, so I spent a while focused on set-top boxes and cable infrastructure. Before long, however, I transitioned to a product management role.
Over the course of my product management time at AOL I learned a ton about social media (anyone remember AOL Member Directory and Message Boards?), and helped transition a number of products from proprietary technology to the standards-based stuff that was taking over the web.
I also got experience in various management roles, including technical management of dev and QA teams (early in the days of agile!) and directing a product management team.
Jefferson Lab
After I did the research for my doctorate at Jefferson Lab in Virginia and graduating from William & Mary, I spent a year and a half doing a post-doc at the lab. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there; this was when the accelerator was just coming online, and it was arguably the place in the US to do nuclear physics. The lab was populated with extraordinary folks from around the world.
Here’s a list of publications with my name on them from my time there.
I departed because the web was taking off, and I really felt an urge to be part of that. Nowadays you’d call it FOMO.
Education stuff
Physics @ William & Mary
My PhD is in hadronic physics (experimental), from W&M. My research was done at Jefferson Lab (above) and involved an experiment looking into behavior of a particular resonance of the proton. You can find my dissertation here. I think the topic is very cool, and I’m always puzzled that others are interested only when battling insomnia 😛
Electrical engineering @ University of VA
My BS is in electrical engineering, from UVa. I was there to see the transition from punch cards to the new-fangled PC. ‘Nuff said.
Really old history
For the first 5 years out of undergrad, I worked at Texas Instruments and a couple of small shops designing radio frequency (RF) circuits, antennas, A/D systems, active filters, PLLs, DSP systems, and the like (hardcore electrical engineering stuff!). Nights and weekends were spent designing and building my own audio equipment (speakers, active filters, amplifiers) and writing assembly code for processors. At the end of this stretch I caught the physics bug (after reading the classic Physics for Poets), spent about a year of spare time trying to backfill my minimal physics education, and managed to get into grad school.