Director, Operations

Why I work for Soapbxx

There is a great set of interlocking commitments here: making top tier websites, organizing a 5-star international team of designers and developers, and using open source wherever possible.

Find me on the Web

I've got the basics pretty well covered: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Vimeo.  I really like Wiser Earth, a social/professional networking site for people working in sustainability-related fields. I also have five blogs, but the only one I really maintain is about making an electric vehicle.

When I lived in Prague, a publisher and I started a magazine and I was the creative director. Amazingly, someone took the time to put a couple of issues if it on the Web after it closed down in 1995. Unfortunately, the best part of the magazine was our layout, and that didn't make it to the Web. I also run Greener Applications, a software development company and consultancy.

My life so far

I studied Literary and Cultural Studies at Carnegie Mellon University, and in 1994 I was on a team that got a grant to do a website (Pittsburgh Digital Press). We had it up when Yahoo had about 700 listings. Since then I've been a serial technology entrepreneur in telecom, Java intelligent agent servers, video syndication (think YouTube circa 1999), IT consulting, business process outsourcing. Now I'm working on Soapbxx, doing IT consulting and making greenerApps – a Web-based greenhouse gas tracking system for government and higher ed.  I also did some work recently with the Obama Presidential Transition Team.

Things I like and don’t like

I really like vintage suits from Brooks Brothers and J Press, great business models, cars (especially electric vehicles, Formula One, old Land Rovers, and BMWs built in the early 1970s and 2000s), businesses that pay their taxes, outstanding food writing, whiteboards, land titling as an economic engine for developing countries, the art of Ryan McGinness, bourbon, Macs, great music, open intellectual property, 1970s Danish furniture, public access-type TV (MindTV, Current, C-SPAN), snowboarding, working on really big deals, good video mixtapes, longboard skateboarding, giving presents, dark chocolate and peanuts.

While I don't mind SUVs, I really can't stand it when people drive them badly.