My first robots ran on motors I scavenged from broken DVD players. When that’s what you have, you learn to build with less: what matters, what fails, and what can be simplified. Five years into my professional career, I still design that way. Functional over fancy, always.

At GrayMatter Robotics, I’m often one of the first people pulled into complex problems or applications built from nothing. I’ve designed tradeshow systems that could deploy and pack down in hours, built unbreakable demos that turned into multimillion-dollar robot deals, and led projects like Scan & Grind to launch new applications unlocking new markets segments.

Today, I’m building a new application from the ground up while leading the perception team for it, working with the latest hardware, VLAs, frontier models, and segmentation algorithms. I heavily use agentic workflows and AI tools to rapidly explore solutions through small experiments. I’d rather run the micro-experiment than argue about which approach should win. 

I’m focused on the customer. I work to understand what they actually need, manage expectations early, define the system and timeline, and lead the team through deployment. The goal isn’t just to build something technically impressive, but to solve the right problem, deliver predictably, and make the economics work. That instinct started with a 3D printing business I ran during my senior year. It taught me how to sell, move quickly, and recognize that customers rarely ask for exactly what they need.

I also care deeply about engineering leverage. I automate repetitive work, build internal tooling, and improve team workflows. I launched GrayMatter’s first structured training program, wrote the documentation, and trained 30+ engineers across system software and hardware. I spend real time hiring because the next hard problem is only solvable if the right team is already here.

My technical range spans legged robots, drive systems, industrial arms and cobots, 3D stereo, LiDAR, RGB cameras, trajectory planning, C++, Python, ROS 2, and specialized tooling including force compliance, sanders, grinders, inspection heads, and blast heads.

The common thread is simple: build reliable systems, understand the customer deeply, and make the team more capable. I’m a strategic engineering leader who stays hands-on close to the customer, deep in the system, and willing to make the hard technical decisions myself.