About Me

Basic Information

Professional Profile

I am a highly motivated and entrepreneurial product and project manager with nearly 20 years of experience working in product development, customer service and software development. After I founded my own company and was awarded a patent in 2019, I decided to shift careers. I completed an intensive Data Analytics & Visualization Boot Camp at the University of Minnesota and am pursuing a B.S. for Data Management & Analytics at Western Governor’s University on evenings and weekends.

Through my decades of my experience in customer service, software development and project management, I have developed great communication, an adaptable and flexible workstyle, attention to detail, and excellent problem-solving skills.

Through my various jobs, I’ve excelled at working as a part of diverse teams – and I am especially good at communicating in challenging contexts, from overcoming cultural and linguistic hurdles to interpreting technical information to lay audiences.

Where in the past I have traveled extensively for work; today I’m looking for quality of life, more evenings at home with my kids, and enjoying the northern Minnesota outdoors year-round.

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Experience

  • Founder, CEO

    Breathalytics, LLC

    Jan. 2017 - Aug. 2018

    Founded Breathalytics, a breathalyzer and software development company, creating solutions for law enforcement and workplace applications. Assembled a team of employees, shareholders and contractors to design an innovative platform making significant improvements on breath alcohol testing technology.


    Managed all aspects of the hardware and software development process which was completed ahead of schedule and under budget. Secured the first beta test customer for a long-term proof of concept demonstration commencing in February 2018 (Carver County Sheriff’s Office, MN).


    Key Achievements:

    • Raised $750k from local private equity investors in June 2017.
    • Assembled and managed a small team that developed a minimum viable product and commenced live beta testing 9 months after receiving funding.
    • Spearheaded the invention of and co-inventor of a patent pending breathalyzer module that outperformed our expectations. In the first 12 months of beta testing, the enhanced design has significantly reduced customer maintenance while providing superior performance and accuracy.
  • General Manager

    Precision Kiosk Technologies

    Apr. 2012 - Dec. 2016

    Consulted with the initial start-up company, which invented the IntoxBox and facilitated its recapitalization resulting in Precision Kiosk Technologies. Researched operational risks and opportunities related to manufacturing and operating consumer breathalyzer devices available for public use. Advocated at state and national levels for the creation of consumer breathalyzer kiosk standards and responsible transportation initiatives for impaired patrons.


    Key Achievements:

    • Negotiated a private label agreement with Uber which led to the sale of 80 kiosks being shipped to 22 different countries in 10 different languages.
    • Co-authored a White Paper in 2014 discussing bar breathalyzer kiosk standards which was used to influence the first legislation in the United States being passed to establish standards for Bar Breathalyzer Kiosk Standards (Utah HB190.2014).
    • Supervised the successful engineering and software development and testing processes creating the first automated breathalyzer kiosk and cloud software platform for law enforcement applications.
  • General Manager, Board Member

    BHGDN, LLC

    Dec. 2005 - Jan. 2014

    BHGDN was the owner of the Schmidt Brewery Property, a 15-acre site located in St. Paul, Minnesota. Represented the owners and managed all aspects of the property including the negotiation of purchase agreements, rental agreements, removal of equipment, awarding construction contracts. Led all communications with the City of St. Paul and the local press.


    Key Achievements:

    • Acting as the debtor in possession, navigated the successful emergence from the Gopher State Ethanol Chapter 11 Bankrupcty on behalf of the property owners.
    • Negotiated a reduction of the site’s county property tax by 50% in 2008, resulting in future savings and more than $200k in refunds for prior years paid.
    • Negotiated a $1.2 million sale of buildings to the Fort Road Federation in April 2011 and a $7.5 million sale of buildings and land to Dominium in November 2012.
  • Vice President of Capital

    Corval Group

    Apr. 2008 - Jan. 2011

    Led the negotiations to create the Capital Division at Corval Group, a project due diligence and financing division to support Corval Group’s construction business. Created financial models to evaluate renewable energy projects and emerging technologies to assess construction, financing, feedstock, and commodity sale risks.


    Key Achievements:

    • Educated Flint Hills Resources staff on ethanol production processes, environmental permitting, and operations during on-site inspections at corn ethanol plants in Iowa, which resulted in Flint Hills purchasing their first ethanol production facilities (Hawkeye Ethanol Plants).
    • Co-authored Freedom Fuels Biodiesel (IA) Bankruptcy reorganization plan, presented to numerous co-op board, secured lender, and shareholder meetings; resulting in the successful sale and reorganization of the company.
    • Co-authored East Fork Biodiesel (IA) Bankruptcy reorganization plan and presented at numerous shareholder meetings throughout Iowa.
  • President, COO

    Gopher State Ethanol

    Apr 2003 - Dec. 2005

    Initially hired as a shift operator, operated and trained new employees in all areas of production.


    Promoted to Plant manager and oversaw all aspects of production; including safety, scheduling, maintenance, and process improvements.


    While the company was being sued by the EPA, State of Minnesota, and City of St. Paul; was promoted to President, COO. Responsible for all aspects of the company including Environmental Health Safety, Compliance, Operations, Finance, Human Resources and negotiating union labor agreements.


    Key Achievements:

    • Successfully negotiated remediation and lawsuit settlements with the City of St. Paul, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), and Federal agencies over noise, odor, and emissions.
    • Initiated a corn ethanol alternative starch program utilizing waste streams containing sugars from commercial bakeries, food processors, and beverage companies to produce ethanol.
    • Oversaw numerous process design modifications to increase overall production and reduce operational expenses.
  • Plant Manager

    Gopher State Ethanol

    Aug. 2002 - Apr. 2003

  • Shift Operator

    Gopher State Ethanol

    Mar. 2000 - Aug. 2002

Education

Projects

Click on the images below to learn more about some of the projects I've worked on.
Follow the links to access live examples, Github repos, or slide decks.

Links to Project GitHub Pages

Links to Live Project Examples

Links to Slide Decks

  • ALL
  • Jupyter Notebook
  • Python App
  • Web / Dashboard
  • JavaScript
  • API
  • Machine Learning
  • Twitter Scraping and Munging

    Tweepy | Pandas


  • Text Classification ML

    Colab | Sklearn | Kmeans


  • UFO Sighting Dashboard

    D3.js | HTML


  • d3.js Interactive Plot

    D3.js | HTML


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  • MN DOT Analysis

    API | Matplotlib | Pandas


  • News Media Sentiment Analysis

    Matplotlib | Tweepy | Pandas


  • Mars Weather Dashboard

    Pymongo | Flask | Scraping


  • Academy of PY

    Pandas | JupyterNotebook


  • Power of Plots

    Matplotlib | Pandas


  • Random City Weather Analysis

    Matplotlib | Pandas | API


  • Climate Analysis App

    Flask_SqlAlchemy | Matplotlib | API


  • Risky Business

    Machine Learning | SkLearn


  • Kafka DDOS Analysis

    Kafka | Python