Summary
SUMMARY
Multidisciplinary background in technologies and healthcare. Fluidly able to alternate between hands-on, team building, mentoring, and C-level positions (CTO, CIO, CDO, CSO, etc.) constantly updating data, information, knowledge, wisdom, methodologies, perspectives, and skills. As much as possible, as appropriate, sharing this experience and information openly to help expand the impact from these efforts to improve the overall human condition through outlets such as the non-profit RPG Research, the Tech Talk with Hawke broadcasts and website, other talk shows and podcasts, as well as many other channels and open source communities. Enabling organizations to swiftly take their vision and adapt requirement needs towards achieving an exceptional track record of success. Additional background as Washington State Department of Health Registered Recreational Therapist with a diverse background in education, neurosciences, neurotech, research, and healthcare (including nursing, rehabilitation, emergency room, in-patient and out-patient long-term care, medical records systems, HIPAA compliance, etc.) expands technical knowledge across many verticals.
A highly flexible technical leader, quality of life advocate, and professional development mentor with 15+ years of leadership and 20+ years hands-on technical engineering experience at all tiers: legacy and cloud infrastructure, data layers, middleware, front-end, advanced networking, hardware, physical and information security, etc. Working at all levels from hands-on through C-level management. Working with a range of companies from brand-new built-from-the-ground-up fast-growth startups, non-profits, small mom-and-pop shops, through SMBs, to global enterprises with 10k+ employees and millions of users, and Fortune 10, 50, 100, 500, and 1000 companies. Building departments and organization up from scratch to over 35 direct reports and over 200 under my overall supervision.
Often brought in to solve the problems that others have been stuck trying to solve, helping companies that are trying to figure out how to improve their efficacy and efficiency in SMBs and Enterprises, or to help thought leaders trying to figure out how to turn their ideas into reality from the ground up.
A great supporter of open source, and try to avoid custom-coding solutions from scratch if there are already great tools available (especially open source options) that can get organizations 60%, 80% or even 90%+ of the way to what the need much more quickly than most custom-coded solutions can, and with whole communities to support many of the tools, reducing the maintenance burden of our core support and development staff, and letting the organizations focus on their “secret sauce” rather than all of the little things that are already addressed by others. If there are no viable off the shelf open source or affordable solutions that are close enough to customize, then I have lead teams to build entire robust, and very importantly scalable, platforms from scratch and through multiple full version iterations (1.x, 2.x, etc.).
Taking more of a leading by example and being a mentor (not tor-mentor) leadership approach, with strong accountability but without being a micromanager.
In addition to an extensive technology and management background, organizations benefit by drawing on many years of background in the neurosciences, cognitive neuropsychology, neurotechnology, recreational therapy, innovative R&D, research psychology, and known as the “Grandfather of Therapeutic Gaming” in healthcare, role-playing game, professional development, education, and therapy industries.