They say, “the best way to predict the future is to invent it” – so I’ve tried…and an applied physicist with a Harvard MBA can be a disruptive threat to any paradigm. Inventing the future has rarely been easy, but it has been a grand adventure. So, now that I am getting older and grayer, I made this for those who ask, “what do you do?”
In the 1980’s, I conceived laser weapons, drone-based tactical systems, and immersive virtual environments for DoD that are still “emerging” today, pioneered zero-gravity manufacturing in space, and helped accelerate the way semiconductor capital equipment is produced in Silicon Valley. I also graduated from Georgia Tech with highest honors, and HBS with distinction.
In the 1990s, my start-up companies in auto security, virtual reality, and computer vision won innovation awards at the Consumer Electronics Show, Virtual Reality & Persons With Disabilities, the DoD’s Small Business Innovation & Research program, and other venues.
In the 2000s, my ventures conceived and deployed the most accurate face recognition system DARPA & NIST ever tested, developed a 3D virtual-reality try-on system that rationalized prescription eyewear production, and won “Best International Security Idea of 2008” for a rapidly-deployable disaster sheltering solution offering “net zero everything” ship-flat villages.
In the 2010s, I helped raise two amazing teens, saved low-income apartment communities from wrecking balls, acquired some AirBnB houses, and improved a beach estate in Costa Rica – which became the highest grossing rental in the globally-renowned resort town of Tamarindo, and its first solar house.
I also virally popularized an industrial art medium that uses plywood to construct unique tab and slot furniture and other structures without the use of fasteners, with all proceeds benefiting the arts. And sang in a 12-piece dance band led by one of the Bay Area’s top horn players. For intellectual fun, I helped design a fully-furnished “nano-home” relief shelter, made of 20 plywood sheets and zero fasteners – eat your heart out IKEA:)
So, what do I do? The answer has always been “find the domain where breaking outside the box excites me the most”. In recent years, that has meant finding ways to think about something other than the extreme spinal pain I suffer from. Today, combining both looks like “seek new sustainability paradigms that align human nature with mother nature for lasting mutual benefit that lives beyond me”.
To do that, I’m designing a villa community where every detail is eco-positive, so guests can regenerate themselves and nature together.
Wish me luck – we really do need to save our biodiversity, because we need nature, but nature doesn’t need us…