Hmm… Who am I?

I was born in Denver, Colorado. I grew up skiing and snowboarding, playing bass guitar, playing a little bit of rugby then diving (the kind off a springboard into a pool) for Regis Jesuit High School. I worked for 3.5 years at the Denver Mariott City Center, first as a janitor but the bulk of my time was as a baggage porter aka bellhop.

I went to college in Mount Vernon, Iowa at a small liberal arts school called Cornell College (no, the other Cornell). The school was mostly known for teaching One Class At A Time, and NOT Computer Science or International Business, my two majors as part of my BA. While there, I played a year of football, was a member of Delta Phi Rho, and was a bartender at Joe’s International Airport.

After graduation I worked a summer of construction labor and restaurant jobs before landing a position at The University of Iowa as a software developer doing work on both HR and finance systems. It was during this time I got my private pilot’s license at Greencastle Aero Club, learning to land old Cessna 150’s in a cornfield.

In 2005 I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico where I worked a random assortment of tech jobs. I played a bit of rugby with the New Mexico Brujos, some banjo with The Green Billies (Tidal, Spotify), did some bicycling, rock climbing, camping, and other New Mexcio-y things. I got married, I got divorced. In 2013 I joined a growing startup in the transportation network space called Uber as a software engineer.

Election night 2016 I watched with horror as the states on the TV turned red. Recently separated and already considering a move out to The Bay Area to be closer to HQ, I panic/drunk searched Uber’s job site and found out that 1) Aarhus was a city in Denmark, 2 - Uber’s Danish office was in Aarhus, and iii. said office was hiring for my position. I spoke with my would-be manager that week and visited Denmark for the first time ever in December 2016. It took me less than a week to decide that I’d be moving.

I officially moved to Denmark in February 2017. I joined the Surf Agency SUP club to learn how to stand up paddle. In May I met the woman who would be my wife, who was a SUP and SUP Yoga instructor there. We had our first “real” conversation in June, started dating late July, she moved in to my place in September, and we were pregnant by November.

Five years later I now live in Klitmøller, Denmark (aka Cold Hawaii) with my wife and our two wonderful girls, where we surf when we can, take dips in the ocean year round, and squeeze in some gravel biking from time to time. I left Uber in 2021, worked on a startup called Acter for a bit over a year, and will be joining a new startup called FuelVison in August. Oh, and my wife and I joined a team that bought and re-imagined Klitmøller Røgeri.

That’s all I can remember now. Hopefully there’s plenty more to ad.