First Principles
Question everything. Build up from base truths, not inherited assumptions.
About
Welder, soldier, programmer, context engineer.
I build AI projects that deliver value. I’m a systems developer who gets stalled AI-assisted software delivering again, and I work AI-native, so one operator delivers what usually takes a team.
I hold a degree in Materials Science & Engineering from Iowa State, specializing in metals, polymers, and composites. I served six years as a combat engineer in the Iowa National Guard.
My career has moved across materials, automotive, manufacturing, software, and energy, not by design. Each domain surfaced a problem that required understanding the next one. That pattern is the whole point: the hardest opportunities sit in the coordination gaps no single specialization can close.
So I built my own AI-native way of working, structured context, sharp tooling, and a hard review-and-test gate, and I run my delivery practice on it. It’s what lets one operator turn fast AI output into software that actually ships: more done, with less.
- Founder
- BlackSwan Consulting LLC (2025)
- Based in
- Louisville, KY
- Education
- B.S. Materials Science & Engineering, Iowa State
- Service
- 6 years as a combat engineer, Iowa National Guard
AI may do everything eventually. For the foreseeable future, the win goes to talented people who use it to do more with less.
Being AI-native means knowing where AI belongs and where it doesn’t. The bottleneck has moved: AI writes plenty; the constraint is review, testing, and the judgment to know what’s worth shipping, and what shouldn’t be built with AI at all. The contrast is everywhere right now: a sharp operator with AI quietly does more with less, while a botched rollout does the opposite, more AI spend for less real work shipped, headcount converted to tokens with little to show. I advocate for clean-sheet design over bolting AI onto legacy compromises, and for treating AI output as a draft to be verified, not a result to be trusted. Sometimes the highest-leverage call is plain, well-built software. AI does the volume; humans own the judgment and the relationships.
Operating principles
How I operate
Just Build It
Start small enough to start now. Action compounds faster than planning.
Slow is Smooth
Sustainable pace. Smooth is fast.
Relentless Curiosity
Seek questions, not answers. Curiosity is a compass; confidence is a crutch.
Radical Honesty
Perspectives over egos. Get humbled sooner rather than later.