About
My career started in 2001 as a title research clerk at a Las Vegas timeshare company. Within months I'd built an Access database to replace the manual process around me — not asked, just built, and presented after it was already working. The instinct underneath has run through every move since: see the right structure, build it, trust that the next thing is bigger.
Two-plus decades through data analytics, regulatory compliance, enterprise systems architecture, and executive technology leadership in regulated institutions taught me what governance looks like when it's working — and what it costs when it isn't. In 2009, reviewing legacy ASP systems alongside auditors and quietly remediating cleartext password storage before it became an incident. FutureCore was a case study in proactive tech debt management, until ChatGPT exposed the limits of how fast regulated finance can move. My final corporate role was at Zions Bancorporation.
The pattern in AI adoption is the same one I'd watched for twenty years. The resistance isn't technical — it's that the people inside default to protecting the current role rather than expanding past it. I formalized the practice in October 2025: vendor evaluation, governance frameworks, acceptable use policy, contract review, pilot oversight, and ongoing fractional-executive engagement for organizations that need the function without the full-time hire.
That work led to two concurrent executive roles, each shaped by what the organization needed. The Cold Case Coalition already has an Executive Director; what was missing was strategic technology direction and platform architecture, so I serve there as Chief Innovation Officer — translating the founder's vision into operational systems that support investigators and victim families. Utah Crime Stoppers didn't need a separate CIO; it needed end-to-end operational ownership. Utah is the last state in the nation to stand up an anonymous tip program, and we're building it from the ground up — focused on launching it right rather than launching it fast. I serve there as Executive Director.
I also write — currently on AI governance and the structural patterns that make legacy enterprise systems fragile. The conviction underneath: predictable patterns produce predictable failures, and if your data architecture can't be explained on a whiteboard, it probably can't be trusted with someone's life.
Currently
- Chief Innovation Officer, Cold Case Coalition
- Executive Director, Utah Crime Stoppers
- Fractional CAIO engagements — selective, 2026
- Writing on AI governance and legacy enterprise architecture