This site is a place to work through ideas in writing. Those ideas tend to be about technology, policy, culture, and public institutions, but sometimes they're just about random things I think are neat. If you think something is neat too, you can email me about it.
You can also find me on:
Professional stuff
I've had kind of a Chili's Sampler Platter of jobs. I've been a public sector management consultant, comms director for a global democracy nonprofit, founding member of the CFPB tech team (🪦), digital diplomacy & analytics leader at the State Department, and even worked in the factory that puts together your Scholastic book orders. But most relevant here, I held increasingly senior/executive roles in the federal government tech/product/digital services space.
Right now I'm leading federal civilian accounts at Ad Hoc, a digital services firm. I lead teams working with NASA, Library of Congress, IRS, FDIC, and others to deliver great tech and try to make government work a little better.
The common thread is a belief that technology can actually enhance democracy by improving services and strengthening the relationship between people and their government. Basically I'm a democracy and government nerd who sort of stumbled into technology as an entry point for that and never left.
Personal stuff
I'm originally from Queens, NY. Today I live in Alexandria, VA with my wife (a current public servant) and daughter. I love music, travel, historical nonfiction books/podcasts, running/lifting, and being a connoisseur of northern VA's incredible international restaurant scene. I love a good spreadsheet.
Also, I am very very minorly internet famous as an email marketing guru thanks to a random tweet from like 2010.
I'm a kidney donor, and my daughter is a kidney transplant recipient. You can be a kidney donor too! It's a pretty great deal: you can literally save a life, and all you have to do is get some tests and have a small routine surgery. Please please please AMA about any and all aspects of this, whether you're thinking of donating or just curious. I am happy to be your kidney donation guy.
Thanks for reading.
Colophon
Some of the useful pieces of software that help me make this website:
- Main framework: 11ty
- Particularly useful plugins: footnotes, syntaxhighlight
- Supporting frameworks: Node, npm, git, github
- Typography: Antonio, Bricolage Grotesque, DM Mono, and IBM Plex Serif via Google Fonts
- Coding assistant: GPT 4.1
- Code editor: VSCode
- Markdown editors: Obsidian (desktop), Typewriter (iOS)
- Domain registrar: iwantmyname