I grew up in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin in the United States and went to school at the University of Wisconsin Eau­Claire.­ I have been writing software full-time since 1994, when I released my first commercial software product.­In 1998, I began my career with Pearson VUE, a provider of global-based testing solutions and a division of UK-based Pearson­PLC, the international education and information company, whose businesses include the Financial Times Group, Pearson­Education, and the Penguin Group.

While at Pearson VUE, I held jobs of increasing responsibility including Software Engineer, Senior Engineering Lead, and Senior­Software Product Architect. I have extensive experience using Java, Groovy, Flex/Flash, C++, C#, Visual Basic, and PHP.

My­ specialties include software design and architecture, refactoring, test/behavior-driven development, process automation, and­ continuous integration.­ At VUE, I am well known for my ability to solve the most difficult technical challenges and have invented­ new design patterns, designed and implemented Computer Adaptive Testing algorithms, and designed domain-specific languages ­and implemented compilers for those languages.­­ I was a founding member of Pearson VUE’s first internship program and
mentored interns.

Outside of work, I sponsor and volunteer for TEDxTC, an independently organized TED event in St Paul, Minnesota, USA.­I also worked with University of Wisconsin Eau Claire and Wisconsin Public Radio to design and develop an Open Source­ software program used to track local, state, and national election results in real-time.­ Not only is this software used to provide­ accurate reporting on election results, but Computer Science Seniors at the University use it understand how to write and­ maintain production quality software.

I am an avid outdoor adventurist, enjoying water skiing, snowboarding, boating and motorcycling. I am also a private pilot and­ enthusiastic amateur photographer.

I moved to Shanghai China in October 2011 with my girlfriend. We returned­ to Minneapolis in September 2013.