Great leaders are well-rounded, continuously learning, and engaged beyond their primary role. This section showcases the interests and activities that inform my leadership approach.

Continuous Learning

Technology and leadership practices evolve rapidly. I stay current through deliberate study of industry-defining books on software engineering, DevOps, architecture, and organizational excellence. These aren’t just reviews—they’re reflections on how these principles apply to real-world transformation initiatives.

Featured reads include:

• Accelerate - The science of high-performing technology organizations
• Team Topologies - Organizing teams for fast flow and value delivery
• The Pragmatic Programmer - Timeless practices for software excellence

Leadership Under Pressure

After completing law enforcement training in 2008 (graduating top of my class), I served as an auxiliary police officer from 2009 to 2025—16 years of responding to crises, managing conflicts, and making split-second decisions. I also served as Chief of Jackson County Rescue Squad for 7 years, leading technical rescue operations including high-angle rope rescue, swift water rescue, and wilderness search and recovery. As incident commander on operations like Paradise Falls rescue, I coordinated multi-agency responses in complex, high-stakes situations.

These experiences have shaped my approach to:

• Crisis management - Making clear decisions with incomplete information under time pressure
• Team coordination - Leading diverse teams in high-stakes, life-or-death situations
• Risk assessment - Balancing urgency with safety and thoughtful planning
• De-escalation - Turning conflicts into cooperation before situations explode
• Discipline and accountability - Maintaining standards when pressure is highest
• Community service - Using skills to serve beyond professional obligations

Leadership in emergency response translates directly to leadership in technology: staying calm under pressure, communicating clearly, coordinating teams flawlessly, and always putting the team and mission first. Most tech executives never experience leadership where lives are on the line—I did it for 16 years while building engineering teams.

Technical Exploration

I maintain hands-on technical engagement through side projects, a comprehensive home lab, and real production deployments:

• Home Lab with Full Virtualization - Running Kubernetes, Rancher, and Harvester with Cloudflare integration
• Hybrid Cloud Deployments - Deploy personal projects to both home lab and AWS, managing the same deployment pipelines and infrastructure patterns I lead teams to use
• Production-Grade Infrastructure at Home - Container orchestration, infrastructure as code, multi-cluster management, CI/CD pipelines - same tech stack as enterprise
• Radio communications and frequency standards - Understanding physical layer technologies
• Embedded systems - Microcontroller programming and hardware integration
• Amateur radio operations - Licensed as KJ4WLC

These projects keep me grounded in the reality of building things, not just talking about them. I deploy to AWS, troubleshoot Kubernetes clusters, manage infrastructure as code, and maintain CI/CD pipelines - the same workflows my teams execute daily. When I recommend Kubernetes, Rancher, or AWS services to my teams, I’m speaking from hands-on experience running these systems myself. A Director who codes, deploys, troubleshoots, and maintains real production infrastructure maintains credibility and empathy with engineering teams.

Why This Matters

The best technology leaders:

• Never stop learning - Continuously updating mental models and practices
• Serve beyond work - Community engagement builds character and perspective
• Stay hands-on - Maintain connection to the craft, not just the management
• Bring diverse experiences - Draw insights from varied leadership contexts

These interests aren’t separate from my professional identity—they’re integral to being an effective, well-rounded technology leader.