As CTO managed annual IT budgets over $10,000,000.

IT & InfoSec Consulting & systems audits for Fortune 100 & 500 listed companies with networks with over 10,000 users.

Introduced by professionals and conventions as "The Grandfather of Therapeutic Gaming" because they claim I have been studying the effects and uses of role-playing games longer than anyone else. I have been publishing many resources on these topics over the decades.

Corporate Systems & Components Architect for environments with over 4,000 nodes.

As Executive Director managed more than 200 staff, as CTO directly hired and supervised over 35 employees, and supervised through hierarchy over 50 employees.

Acquired and managed multiple offshore teams in India and U.K.

Personally built over 10,000 custom systems, supervised teams of technicians building more than 50,000 custom systems.

Repeatedly rapidly built entire facilities infrastructure from scratch to enterprise grade "5 9's" (99.999%) up time services (pre "cloud" and hybrid "legacy" with cloud).

Founder of RPG Research

Founder of RPG Therapeutics LLC

Creator and inventor of the RPG Mobile fleet of accessible mobile therapeutic, educational, and recreational facilities.

In cooperation with the opensource community configured, built, and ran Jitsi to support more than 20,000 concurrent audio/video chatroom users in a production environment.

Helped save WorldCon, GenCon, World Builders, ZoeCon, and other international conventions from cancellation in 2020.

Creator of Other Minds Magazine

Creator of MerpCon and TolkienMoot

Creator and inventor of MaladNet, fully independent rural Wireless ISP (solar and wind powered) for rural and remote broadband.

• As Senior Technical Lead for R&D for LearningMate.com worked on robust features for e-learning school online platform for daily around ~20,000 students, teachers, and parents K-12, and Zoom replacement.
• As CTO personally built from gound-up, entire Over-the-top subscription streaming movie platform for 1.0 through 3.0 of the TheFantasy.Network
• During COVID, extended TFN platform 4.x  to support live conference to save conferences and conventions worldwide from cancellation, including WorldCon 78 Hugo Awards, GenCon Film Festival, and others. At peak supported 20,000+ concurrent simultaneous streaming interactive users in rooms, panels, tabletop online games, chat, streaming, and more.  As CTO managed annual IT budgets over $10,000,000.
• As CTO we built platform that saved multiple conventions from cancellation by creating fully interactive online event experience (some with more than 20,000 participants during the 1 to 5 days events), so that the following conventions could continue: WorldCon 78 CoNZealand Hugo Awards New Zealand, GenCon Film Festival USA, Realm Makers, Technorama Australia, ZoeCon IV.
• Development Director of Brain-Computer Interface controlled ERPG (ongoing since August 2019).
• Over 25 years of physical and virtual security experience.
• IT & InfoSec consulting, audits, and systems administration for Fortune 100 & 500 listed companies networks, with over 10,000 employee users (and millions of website users).
• Corporate Systems & Components Architect for multinational infrastructure supporting over 4,000 employee users, and millions of Internet customer users, in over 50 countries.
• Built non-profit 501(c)3, 100% volunteer-run. Incorporated in 2017. 10 long-term volunteers in 2018. Over 120 long-term volunteers across 5 continents by 2020.
• Designed and personally built entire IT infrastructure and department staffing from scratch for multiple companies.
• Built and provided mission-critical infrastructure and services to county hospital, clinic, and related medical facilities.
• Directly supervised over 20 employees, supervised through hierarchy over 50 employees & contractors.
• Hired/contracted and managed multiple offshore teams in India and U.K.
• Personally built over 10,000 retail custom systems, supervised teams of technicians building more than 50,000 retail custom systems.
• Extensive experience with most technology platforms, audits, incident handling, pen-testing, policies, security training for employees, and other InfoSec aspects.
• Designed, staffed, trained, implemented, and transitioned multiple InfoSec corporate divisions from scratch, including “Red Teams”.
• Certified in 2002 as GCIH (GIAC Certified Incident Handler) through SANS Institute, my research still published on their website: https://www.sans.org/security-resources/malwarefaq/pptp-vpn
• Google Chrome OS / Chromebook developers cited my security research for key technology decisions regarding VPNs.
• Rebuilt “bulletproof” 2600 IRC in 2002.
• Working with technology systems since 1979.

As CTO managed annual IT budgets over $10,000,000.
● Over 25 years of physical and virtual security experience.
● IT & InfoSec consulting, audits, and systems administration for Fortune 100 &
500 listed companies networks with over 10,000 users.
● Corporate Systems & Components Architect for multinational infrastructure
supporting over 4,500 users in over 50 countries.
● Designed and personally built entire IT infrastructure and department staffing
from scratch for multiple companies.
● Built and provided mission-critical infrastructure and services to county hospital,
clinic, and related medical facilities.
● Directly supervised over 20 employees, supervised through hierarchy over 50
employees & contractors.
● Hired/contracted and managed multiple offshore teams in India and U.K.
● Personally built over 10,000 retail custom systems, supervised teams of
technicians building more than 50,000 retail custom systems.
● Extensive experience with most technology platforms, audits, incident handling,
pen-testing, policies, security training for employees, and other InfoSec aspects.
● Designed, staffed, trained, implemented, and transitioned multiple InfoSec
corporate divisions from scratch, including “Red Teams”.
● Use of extensive array of permissions control mechanisms including single sign
on (SSO) and many different directory services and authentication mechanisms
including: ADS, LDAP, YP, Intranetware & Netware, Kerberos, NT Domains,
OAuth, Auth0, and many others.
● Certified in 2002 as GCIH (GIAC Certified Incident Handler) through SANS
Institute, my research still published on their website ①
● Google Chrome OS / Chromebook developers cited my security research for key
technology decisions regarding VPNs.
● Rebuilt “bulletproof” 2600 IRC in 2002.
● Working with technology systems since 1979.

Hawke Studios (1991)
Dev 2 Dev Portal LLC (2002)

The Computer Schools (2002)
MaladNet (2002)
Hawke Enterprising dba (2004)

RPG Research (non-profit) (2004)
RPG Therapeutics LLC (2014)

RPG.LLC
RPG Mobile
RPG.Education

By The Numbers

Largest startup funding: $47M USD (MW).
Largest direct signature and annual budget expenditure responsibility: $20M USD per year ("burn-rate")
Largest break-even or profitable annual revenue responsibility: $3.2M per year.
Largest single check signed (so far): $1.3M USD to a VAR.
Largest employee base directly responsible for as management or higher role (direct and indirect reports): 200 (local and across 6 continents, not counting outsourced).
Highest revenue directly response for managing:
Highest labor costs managed:
Greatest P&L numbers directly response for managing:
Worst support per sale percentage:
Best support per sale percentage:

Narrative

I have always been uncomfortable with having to "too my own horn", but time after time I end up in a trail blazing situation with new innovative ideas falling into  leading others, and there is no one else to take up the banner/ So unfortunately I have to undertake the unpleasant self-promotional marketing efforts to grow new business sectors. That is what this page is about, to help answer the many questions people are asking about my background and history.

While most of the other pages more technology focused, this page is more focused on the leadership aspects of what I have done over the years.

As an individual entrepreneur, I started working for money (besides just home extra chores or the like) around 7-8 years old. My earliest paid "job" was as a "Go-fer" at the Lost Packer Mine (at just 9 years old). I washed dishes, chopped wood, hauled the trash to the old smelter (to keep the bears from getting to it), refilled the generators, raked and swept the walkways, and was my grandfather's (and the rest of the mining crew's) "Go-fer". "Go-fer this" and Go-fer that, running up and down the switchbacks to and from the mine and the mining camp. Helping him with clearing tree branches for surveying, etc.

I shoveled snow from many of the neighborhood's driveways and sidewalks during the many major storms in the winter. I was always excited at opportunities to do work, and even nicer when there happened to be some pay added to the joy of helping others and achieving new accomplishments.

In the role-playing gaming world, by the time I was 13, gamers were willing to pay me to be their Game Master (GM for other games) / Dungeon Master (DM for D&D). Before long I had my regular personal group, and then two other paid groups every weekend, more than paying for my hobby and then some.

By the time I was able to to drive, I was the usually rapidly made the lead when there were teams such as for Best Buy Rentals and Events setting up tables and such for wedding and events.  By 16 I was put in charge of 1-2 other (much older) ground crew working on heavy duty construction projects for the surface work of the mine.

Over time I learned that my drive, energy, and enthusiasm could be infectious, and I could get most people around me to do all kinds of things. And I became wary of this after a few intentional experiments to see if I could get all these adults (still in my mid-teens) to do things that were "harmless" (but still not really legal) pranks, and that ability scared me, so I tried with each passing year to be more careful (though it took me some years before I would get my act together). From age 15 through 22 I accomplished a lot, but was also in and out of a lot of trouble, which would take some years to recover from some bad choices on my part. But I learned much from those experiences as well, that would benefit me, and others, in later years.

By my early 20s I was Head of Security and Head of Maintenance over the years for different apartment complexes and office complexes with hundreds of units.

I was also a professional photographer, and became lead photographer of Models International and The Look, later opening my own 2,000+ square foot studio, shooting for the top agencies in Utah, while I was training apprentice photographers and lab technicians.

In Automotive I did the work that no one else wanted, after getting four ASE certifications, I increasingly specialized in emissions and performance systems, and especially electrical and computer systems. All the other mechanics hated electrical and electronics, but I loved taking on the tasks no one else wanted.

Soon I was an instructor at the American Automotive Institute, and brought in as the guest instructor for the other instructors to teach the more modern automotive technology that the other older instructors just didn't get (or like).

I created the entire Graphics Design certificate triaging program from scratch at the Bryman School, later Utah Career College, later Broadview College, training all the instructors that would provide the training to later generations.

By my mid 20s I was rapidly climbing the "corporate ladder" in the tech industry, coming on as a PC Tech trainee and in 2 months taking over for the lead tech, and in another or so I was Chief Information Officer of a small custom PC building and services company, PC Easy, with a factory of 12 build technicians and service providers under my direct supervision. 

I became Director of Operations and Corporate Systems and Components Architect for Franklin Covey in my late 20s, and before I was 30, I was a Senior Principle (VP in training) for a publicly traded company, and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the number online eBook company, MightyWords (later acquired by Barnes & Noble). I went through the whole startup lifecycle, from building company from scratch with the CEO and the entire tech department from scratch, to multiple hardware and software full iterations (alpha, beta, 1.0, many releases, then 2.0 complete overhaul), to clawing up and becoming the number one leader in our industry,. Reaching break-even (in the black) as a startup in those times that was rare in those heady times. We only "burned" through half of our funding in 2 years, and we now had a very long run way of capital and revenue as we worked toward 3.0 and increasing our market dominance. Then being bought out, having to lay people off (but everyone had generous severances, we were not like the other .coms that just suddenly closed their doors), including providing incentives to keep them working productively for months during the asset acquisition and liquidation phases. I was the last one out of the building (besides the CEO) after everything was handed over to B&N or sold off.

I used the money from the B&N takeover of MightyWords to create several of my own small business, including a Virtual Office Workplace company, Dev 2 Dev Portal LLC, a technology instructional company, The Computer Schools, and a wireless ISP, MaladNet, including a number of innovations and outright inventions along the way that I later sold to other interested parties (I never got around to patenting, instead working out straight cash deals with companies and individuals interested in acquiring the information on how to implement these ideas). I didn't get stinking rich, but I was reasonably comfortable, though there have been a LOT of ups and downs. The creation of MaladNet and my use of the exception UUNet backbone (before it was ruined by MCI WorldCom in later years), meant I was also able to help 2600's IRC build a whole new infrastructure after they had been wiped off the face of the earth for over a year. We rebuilt them and they have survived every global attack since.