Software architect, expert problem solver, and adventure lover.

I’m Chris, a software architect and problem solver based in rural Indiana. I love solving hard problems in software and in life, and especially enjoy coaching others on solving their own problems and finding adventure in the process. I’m also the founder and director of The Lighthouse, where me and roughly thirty of my friends spend time weekly with local teenagers, getting to know them and helping them find their way to the life they were made for. I also love playing music, going on wilderness adventures and playing ultimate frisbee.

I am a guy who gets things done. My greatest strength is coming into situations where projects are in trouble, people have left, schedules are behind, etc., quickly determining the “reality” of the project and leading the way out of chaos. Experience at all levels of information technology (from hardware design to large team management) enables me to quickly adapt to new and unpredictable circumstances.

After being discouraged to pursue software by my high school guidance counselor, "There is no future in computers," is what she said in 1987, I started a pre-medicine path in college. I quickly discovered that my love for software had not changed, as I wrote custom software to solve chemistry lab problems, I knew this was what I needed to do. After transitioning to computer science, I determined that I was self-teaching faster than the college process so I dropped out to write software. Within a few years, I started remote working back here in Indiana, before it was a thing (actually before the internet existed). We would use Fedex to send CDs of source code back and forth.

I now have thirty-three years of hands-on development, research, architecture and communication experience in the global software industry. I have deep experience designing and implementing solutions in most modern languages and advanced debugging skills using both high-end debug tools and just plain-old-logging. Doing contract work for over a decade helped me become very adept at quickly coming up to speed on large sets of source code and solving problems within that source code in a short amount of time. I have also developed solid technical writing skills from years of writing technical proposal, design, and research documents. I also have many years of non-technical public speaking and leadership experience.

Here are some things folks I have worked with have to say:

Now in the empty-nest stage of life, I still love learning new things, tinkering with new software "toys", and any kind of adventure. I love "finishing" things - especially shipping software.