My Story
From the Navy to AI Coaching
30 years in enterprise IT. 12 years in the Navy. A career built on doing the hard work that others won’t — and teaching people to use technology the right way.
Where It Started
I was 10 years old when my father brought home an IBM clone. It had a green monochrome screen, a 5.25-inch floppy drive, and a DOS manual that was thicker than my arm. I read that manual cover to cover. By the time I was 12, I was writing batch files to automate tasks my father didn’t know could be automated.
That’s where it started — not with a formal education in computer science, but with curiosity and a manual. I didn’t come from money. I grew up in a working-class family in Hagerstown, Maryland. Technology was the thing I was good at — the thing that made sense when other things didn’t.
12 Years in the Navy
I served 12 years on three aircraft carriers. I started as a Disbursing Clerk — handling pay, managing funds, making sure sailors got paid. But on every ship I was on, I was also the person people came to when the computers broke. So I fixed them. I built spreadsheets that automated tedious processes. I set up networks. I taught myself everything I could about how systems worked.
The Navy taught me something that’s shaped my entire career: lead by example. Don’t tell people to do something you’re not willing to do yourself. Don’t ask someone to work harder than you’re willing to work. I carried that into every role I’ve had since.
Lockheed Martin — Learning Enterprise IT
When I left the Navy in 2006, I walked into Lockheed Martin as a Systems Administrator on a classified program. Within a year, I was the team lead for Windows engineering on the HUD HITS contract, overseeing 12 engineers. I became the VMware subject matter expert. I contributed to contract bids worth $200M+.
Lockheed is where I learned what “enterprise IT” really means — the scale, the complexity, the stakes. It’s also where I learned that the best technology in the world is useless if the people using it don’t understand it.
Accenture — Going Global
In 2014, I joined Accenture as a Senior Delivery Manager. Over the next 9 years, I led the global virtualization team that consolidated 17 data centers down to 10. I managed 16–32 engineers distributed across India, Argentina, London, Germany, Ohio, and Chicago.
Children’s National — Today
Since December 2023, I’ve been the Senior Datacenter Manager at Children’s National Hospital — one of the nation’s top pediatric health systems. I oversee data center and infrastructure operations, leading a 15-engineer Tier 3 team through the enterprise migration from Oracle Cerner to Epic.
Why AI Coaching?
I started using AI tools in late 2022. Within months, I was using Claude and ChatGPT daily — for project planning, documentation, email drafting, technical analysis. The productivity gains were real and measurable.
But when I looked around, I saw most professionals struggling with the same tools I was using effortlessly. They’d tried ChatGPT once, gotten a mediocre answer, and written off AI entirely. The gap between “tried AI” and “uses AI effectively” was massive — and I realized I could help close it.
That’s why I do this. Not because I’m an AI evangelist — but because I’m an engineer who’s seen what these tools can do when used properly, and I want to help other people experience the same thing.