THRIVING AT THE EDGE OF INNOVATION AND REASON

I was maybe eight years old, standing in a darkened facility after hours, watching my dad install security systems that would protect equipment worth millions of dollars. No cameras watching us. No supervisors checking our work. Just the simple expectation that we'd do what we came to do and leave everything better than we found it.

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"There's no right way to do a wrong thing," he'd tell me on those long drives between job sites. "You've got responsibilities—to your family, to your community. But you can't fulfill those if you've compromised your integrity, because that's what gives you the privilege to keep being of service."
I didn't know it then, but those lessons about trust as infrastructure—not outcome—would eventually reshape how I think about everything from supply chain sovereignty to global data sharing.

Learning Systems
Those early years as my dad's apprentice taught me more than just how to hand him the right tools. Working on security, communication, and automation systems across rural Washington State, I learned that everything is connected—the physical layer, the energetic layer, and the digital layer all working together to create something more powerful than any single component.

When you're troubleshooting a system failure at 2 AM in a facility miles from the nearest parts depot, you learn real quick that preparation matters, creative problem-solving matters, and understanding how things actually work (not just how they're supposed to work) matters most of all.

But the biggest lesson was about trust. These weren't just technical installations—they were life safety systems, security systems, communication networks that entire communities depended on. Being trusted with that responsibility, especially as a kid, shaped how I think about every system I've built since.

Building Something
When we sold the family business, I stayed with our partners and realized something: creative minds just need to create. The internet was this wild new thing—mail without stamps!—and I thought it might take off. After a couple failed attempts at what could have been Yahoo moments, we went back to what we knew: connecting physical and digital systems.

Together with my partners, we built Genext into an integrated services company that did everything from fiber optic networks to building automation. If it turned on or could be controlled, we knew how to make it work—and make it look good doing it. We grew from selling dial-up for $10 to delivering gigabit fiber across a network passing 65,000 homes and businesses in rural Eastern Washington.

But here's what struck me: in the early days, customers would meet us at the door with cookies, thrilled to get their 256k wireless connection. By the time we left, I was getting angry messages from people complaining about "only" getting 98% of their 100 meg connection they were paying $20 for.
That shift in perception taught me something important about expectations, value, and what really matters to people.

The Human Revelation
The real breakthrough came when I was visiting an agricultural cooperative—about 500 farming families, half a dozen packer-shippers, 40 agronomists who spent their days in orchards growing some of the world's best tree fruit.

I walked in to see one of the managers pounding his fist on his desk. "These new digital compliance systems," he said. "Nobody wants to use the computers." "Well," I said, "I think I can help. It's just a database, right?"

Wrong. It was anything but a database. It was complex workflows trying to capture the art and science of agriculture—asking people whose office is outdoors, whose sensors are their hands in the soil, to cram their knowledge into forms and spreadsheets.

These men and women are agricultural artists. They're doctors for trees. One grower told me, "I have 50,000 trees, and I know every one personally." You can't reduce that to a user filling out forms.

That's when it hit me: if the data you're collecting doesn't have value in the moment to the person collecting it, they won't collect it. Period. They've got ten things to do today, and one of them isn't filling out your forms.

This changed everything about how we designed software. We stopped thinking about "users" and started thinking about human beings—mothers and fathers who needed to get home for dinner. Our job wasn't to create more work for them; it was to be part of getting them home to their families.

Scaling Impact

What started as a regional solution for tree fruit growers became something bigger. Working with industry associations and standards organizations, I realized these challenges weren't unique to our valley. Growers everywhere faced the same fundamental problem: systems designed by database programmers for people who live and work in three-dimensional reality.

We shifted from building software to building frameworks—open source tools and protocols that anyone could pick up and adapt to their specific challenges. Teach a person to fish, rather than selling them fish.

When we joined forces with a company doing sensor networks and biological pest control (using pheromones to prevent pests from being born rather than killing them with chemicals), things scaled quickly. Within three years, we were operating on over 100 million acres across five continents, with hundreds of scientists contributing to the ecosystem daily.

But the principles remained the same: meet people where they are, create value in the moment, and build systems that serve human flourishing rather than just operational efficiency.

What's Next
Today, through Totem and my work with organizations like the Collaboratory for Open Software & Systems in Ag & Food, the International Fresh Produce Association, ASTM International, and Purdue University, I'm focused on building what I call "trust infrastructure"—systems that operate on expectation rather than enforcement.

It's like the Columbia River hydroelectric system that powers our region: built by the community, owned by the people it serves, focused on providing great service while taking care of the environment and keeping costs low. What if we built digital utilities the same way?

The challenges we're tackling—data sovereignty, supply chain transparency, global interoperability—require the same principles I learned as an eight-year-old in that darkened facility: there's no right way to do a wrong thing, and integrity is what gives you the privilege to keep being of service.

Whether it's smart data escrow systems that let you share information with anyone without sharing it with everyone, or frameworks that enable voluntary cooperation at global scale, the goal is always the same: build something that serves both individual sovereignty and collective flourishing.

The tools have evolved from hand tools to artificial intelligence, but the principles remain constant: trust is infrastructure, value must exist in the moment, and the best systems help people get home for dinner.

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Currently serving as CEO of Totem Ltd., Strategic Lead together with the International Fresh Produce Association on the Supply Chain of the Future initiative, Executive Council Secretary for ASTM F.49 Committee on Digital Supply Chains, Co-founder of The Collaboratory for Open Software & Systems in Ag & Food (COSSAF) and Strategic Advisor at Purdue University's Open Ag Technology & Systems Center.

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