People-first, always. Know your team, advocate for them, and never forget how you got here.
Work
Operations, systems, and the people who make them work.
Most of my work lives where technology meets operations — where the people, the systems, and the mission all have to get along.
How I think about the work
Leadership, operations, infrastructure — in that order.
Good technical work isn't just well-built. It's well-led, well-run, and standing on a foundation you can trust — and increasingly, it's delivered through the web.
Clarity, accountability, and consistency — solving problems, not padding ticket counts.
Networks, platforms, and security that hold up under real pressure.
Digital engagement and web experiences treated as core work, not an afterthought.
Case study 01 · Leadership
People-first, from the ground up.
Re-positioning technology around the people it serves.
At the Field Museum I helped re-position technology around a simple, stubborn idea: people first. That means knowing your team, advocating for them, setting clear expectations, and giving real support — not noise.
It also means solving problems instead of closing tickets. When the same issue shows up week after week, the win isn't answering it faster — it's getting ahead of it so people never have to ask. Mentor folks into ownership, share the load, and the whole operation gets steadier.
Case study 02 · Operations & digital
One department, IT and digital together.
Merging traditional IT and digital engagement into a single team.
I merged traditional IT and digital engagement into one department that works with the whole Museum — so the web presence, visitor-facing systems, and the infrastructure underneath them all answer to the same strategy instead of competing for it.
Practically, that looked like re-engineering digital engagement for the next strategic plan and rapidly deploying an improved ticketing system when it mattered. The web and the wiring aren't separate problems; running them as one team is how you make both feel invisible when they're doing their job.
Case study 03 · Infrastructure
Rebuilding the foundation.
Modern networks inside a century-old building.
Some of the most satisfying work is the least visible. I integrated the Museum's networks, engineered a Wi-Fi solution for a 100-year-old historical building, and took our network egress from 30 Mbps all the way to 1.03 Gbps.
Modernization like that is really an operational challenge, not just a technical one: figure out what people depend on day to day, sequence the change so it doesn't break critical work, and over-communicate so nobody's caught off guard. Progress should feel like progress — not chaos.
Recognition
Consistent peer recognition.
I've been recognized by OnCon every year from 2022 through 2026 — most recently this past April — for leadership in technology and operations. I'm also a member of the Illinois Century Network Advanced Engineering Taskforce.
I'll be honest: I value that most when it reflects the quieter work behind it — building trust, mentoring people, and helping teams do good work, consistently.
