Hello Friends - It is time to run!I am pleased to share that, as of 8/31/2020 I am the owner/operator of an excellent business in a fantastic community. Running has been an important part of my life since college. Now I can bring together my love for people and for running everyday, serving the wonderful people here in this region of Florida. If you are ever in the area I hope you can make time to stop by the store.

The past year has been filled with opportunity to lead change as a contracted employee filling both hands-on and consulting roles. I served as the scrum master for three teams at the public utility JEA, and as both program manager and scrum master at Florida Blue.A key engagement was a major upgrade for the customer care and billing application and data. Along the way I was able to guide the product owners and business leaders to build a robust backlog while coaching the entire team in principles and practices that increased flow, quality, and team collaboration. During this time I also led the work to create a testing process, defining best practices, documenting the workflows, and educating 40+ people.

These four years were key to my agile learning and growth in leading change. Each company struggled deeply to change from command & control, rigid silos, and outdated methods. I served informally and effectively as an agile coach in each company, leading change and educating hundreds of leaders and team members.The most significant work I accomplished was to lead the full restructuring of a monolithic team of 45 members into three product-focused agile teams and one service team.Also, while leading the product direction as PM/PO I mentored the team and management to change from a phased waterfall model to a dynamic delivery model of frequent vertical slices, regular demonstrations, and feedback into the backlog.Another success was to partner closely with a newly formed devops team and serve as the hub of communication and collaboration between them, four product teams, and the C-level business leaders. During this time I also collaborated to produce a series of professional videos on agile principles and practices as a key part of a large contract negotiation.

Working in a small education company in a role wearing many hats, I was able to deliver the first version of a browser-based product that was the initial evolution from a legacy install-based product toward a cloud-based subscription model. During this time I organized and led the market research by creating relationships with schools and making frequent visits to observe and learn and to demonstrate the product and gather feedback and input.At Pearson I served a dual role as scrum master for 3 globally distributed teams and as a member of the project management office. At this time the company was attempting to transition to agile methodologies while staying tied to project management processes. My most significant contribution was to bring focus to frequent delivery and demonstration of working products. The other key accomplishment was to coach and mentor leaders and teams in agile principles of collaboration, small vertical slices of value, and challenging of outdated norms that hindered progress.

Led the software development work on as many as 3 teams simultaneously with up to 16 direct reports. Successfully delivered numerous major and minor releases of the LANDesk flagship product; LANDesk Management Suite. Coordinated efforts across teams, including off-shore developers assigned to the teams.Created 2 new teams and built them into well-functioning, highly productive units; one team for developing a new User Console, and one for Macintosh & Linux/Unix developmentLed the effort in bringing Macintosh development out of obscurity and to the forefront of productivity, visibility, and quality.Took over a dysfunctional team of 7 engineers and within 6 months brought them to a healthy and productive state with high morale, solid productivity, and great quality focus.Led and coordinated the work to move our product from multi-byte to Unicode.Successfully transitioned from an XP based development model to a new model based on Kanban, through training, communication, teamwork, and continuous improvementInstrumental in an increased focus on quality, improved morale, and introduced a more people-focused management styleLocalization Manager (2005-2008)Led a multi-national team of localization developers and testers spread between offices in Utah, Beijing, and Dublin. With a staff of 18 people we localized 4 major products into 9 languages over the course of numerous major minor releases.Revitalized a poorly functioning team plagued with communication and personnel problems using communication, alignment of work assignments, and trainingUnified 3 teams on 3 continents and introduced process, tools, and communication changes to significantly improve productivity, timeliness, and quality.Saved over $100K the first year in outsourcing costs followed by additive savings of over $50K the following 2 years, and laid the groundwork for the complete move away from expensive outsource agencies to a streamlined in-house localization process.

Over the course of four years I led three development teams in a multifaceted role that included hiring, organizing, restructuring, coaching, and leading change. This was the most challenging role of my career as the company struggled to adapt to changes in the market and the effort to change from waterfall to agile.Significant accomplishments include; establishing the gathering of and focusing on agile metrics, changing a maintenance team from iterative to kanban, visiting customers to establish confidence and help close sales, and coaching leaders in lean-agile principles and practices.For the first three years at LANDesk I served as the localization manager of a team of 27 people across 3 continents, responsible of internationalization (I18n) and localization (L10n) of 5 products and 13 languages. We had a perfect record of simultaneous releases (sim-ship) with the English product for a total of dozens of major and minor releases during these three years.

Manager of software localization for all LANDesk products, leading a combined team of localization engineers and testers in Utah, Ireland, and China. Our team handles all aspects of localization for 10 languages in an agile development process. We simultaneously ship all language for each product release, and support numerous products and releases each year. We also train and advise development, testing, management, marketing, and product support on internationalization and globalization issues.

Following my departure from the US Army, I worked for three years as a sales engineer for a medical device manufacturer. In addition to winning new business and maintaining revenue from current accounts I led the foray into international markets in both Japan and Europe. My Japanese language abilities opened the door in 1998 into software and IT, beginning as a Japanese language tester then progressing to numerous roles in localization and internationalization. My success as a leader, combined with constant self-study and learning, opened the path into engineering leadership and the world of agile.