If you want to get a hold of me for professional purposes, I recommend that you start by connecting with me on LinkedIn.

If you need a quick synopsis, here are the basics:

Portfolio, Program, and Project Management

  • Portfolio Management: 5-700 projects in-flight annually, portfolio spend $100MM+
  • Program Management: 3 to 7 year programs containing from 3 to 35 projects in the structure
  • Project Management: Complex individual projects (budgets $25MM+, team size up to 370), usually crossing multiple legal entities, international borders, or multiple departments. Types of projects include:
    • New product and service development;
    • Customer Resource Management (CRM) customizations and conversions;
    • Mergers and acquisitions;
    • Down-sizing;
    • On-shoring/off-shoring and out-sourcing/in-sourcing;
    • New office construction;
  • Methodology Development: designing policy, standard, tools, templates, and processes to support both waterfall (iterative and single) and Agile delivery methodologies
  • Job Family Development: job descriptions, pay bands, compensation design, skills (hard and soft) development
  • Within the project space I have played the following roles:
    1. Within the line of business:
      • Portfolio Director;
      • PMO Director;
      • EPMO Manager; and
      • Methodology Owner and Coach; and
    2. Within a project team:
      • Executive Sponsor;
      • Program / Project Manager;
      • Change Manager;
      • Business Analyst and Business Systems Analyst;
      • Business Architect and Solution Architect (my solution architecture experience was good for the time and place, but is no longer marketable);
      • Developer (if you’re looking for a developer, don’t call me… I wasn’t really good at it); and
      • Tester.

Change Management

  • Customer-facing changes
  • Colleague-facing changes

Process Engineering

  • Kaizen
  • Lean Six Sigma

Internet / Intranet / Extranet

  • Between 1995 and 2006, I have designed and maintained more than 40 unique web sites (or families of related web sites with shared branding and infrastructures) that serve customers or colleagues, including some behind paywalls. Generally speaking, I don’t do web work myself any more in a professional context, as there are more skilled designers available, although I continue to be involved in web work relating to projects that I have held in my portfolio at an advisory level.

Over the years, I have played a number of roles in addition to my core focus of portfolio, program, and project management, including:

  • Start-up Entrepreneur. For the period between 1994 and 2000, I created a string of startup technology companies (mainframe and minicomputer parts brokerage, failover environments, information security, resume blaster, eCommerce hosting);
  • Operations management. Usually, this is the result of a need to run new departments I have created as part of a project, for periods up to 6 months post-launch, while transitioning management to new personnel once operations are normalized);
  • Training and development. This is specific to portfolio, program, and project management topics including of business and technology executives (portfolio management, executive sponsors, product owners), project managers, business analysts, and change managers;
  • Public speaking. Thus far, I’ve been engaged to present on LGBTQ2+, indigenous, environmental issues, arts, science, and failover environments;
  • MacGyver. I spent a year as a consultant without a portfolio, tasked with finding sub-optimal teams and environments and leaning in to find creative solutions to improve operations. This might have been the most fun I have ever had, professionally; and
  • Philanthropist. I am the co-founder of the Pale Blue Dot Foundation. I’m also a fund-raiser, content generator, and researcher.

I have done other work, but I sincerely doubt that I will ever be paid again to be any of the laundry list of things I have done for money over the course of my life. It’s a long, meandering list. I’ve been a dishwasher, busboy, hostess, bartender, cashier, assembly line worker, occupational therapist (geriatrics ward), technical manual writer, muralist, poet, calligraphist, trade show shill, marketing assistant, stablehand, and Kirby vacuum cleaner salesperson. The shortest duration of all of those would be cashier on the breakfast shift at Mickey’s Restaurant (2 shifts), only because it took longer to train me on Kirby sales (3 days) before my first-and-last day of knocking on doors to actually sell them. The longest-held of these positions would be dishwasher, busybody, and bartender, as I am still doing these at home to this very day, although I no longer earn minimum wage or tips for the performance of these duties.