Software by day.Vocals by night.
I’m a product manager at ABC Supply Co. I own the Orders value stream, and I pioneered agentic software delivery there: AI agents build the features, stories, and tests from a brief that people approve. Behind that are 20 years of getting new software to work with the systems a business already runs on.
After work I’m a lead vocalist. I’ve been on stage in the Rockford, Illinois area since 1990: more than 1,000 shows, and 60 to 90 a year for the past decade.
The spec is the program
I pioneered the agentic software delivery lifecycle at ABC Supply. My team is where it gets proven, and I own the product end of it. The idea is to write the spec well enough that agents can build from it.
A brief that people approve
The what and the why of a product change. Once it’s approved, it’s the single source of truth.
Features and stories
Agents compile them from the brief, to a written standard.
Acceptance criteria and tests
Generated from the same brief, so the checks and the spec come from one place.
The team decides
Agents do the compiling and the first pass at refinement. People keep the judgment: what to build, and whether it’s right.
What I built
- The standard for how epics and stories get written.
- A refinement agent that takes the first pass at the backlog.
- A repeatable guide, now shared with ABC’s other product teams.
Proven at home first
Most of these ideas started in my own lab, on my own hardware, before I brought the method to work. See what I’ve built there.
Built in my own lab
Through 2026 I’ve usually had a capability working here months before it arrived as a standard feature in the commercial agent harnesses. It all runs on my own hardware, with local models alongside the frontier ones. Three projects carry most of it.
AgentFW
My open-source governance layer for AI agents. Under it, agents decompose a problem, delegate to scoped sub-agents, and verify the result through independent judges. It separates what can be guaranteed from what can only be encouraged, and it won’t let an agent clear its own blockers. The first version dates to March 2025, and I had the orchestrator, worker, and judge flow running here before subagents became standard in the frontier labs’ harnesses. It’s now at version 9.7, with adapters for Claude Code and Codex.
Drydock
A voice-first, multi-agent development environment for macOS. I talk to a Commander, and it dispatches real coding tasks to a fleet of agents. The difference is what happens after an agent says it’s done: each task runs in its own isolated worktree, its acceptance command is re-run in a locked-down sandbox, and an independent judge rules on the result. A failing command can never be talked up into a pass. A ledger then prices every engine on cost per verified result, failed spend included.
graph-brain
A private knowledge graph that runs entirely on my Mac. It holds two kinds of knowledge. Facts from source systems come in as nodes and edges and are treated as ephemeral, refreshed as the source changes. The tribal knowledge I pick up every day is permanent: I tell it things in plain sentences, a language model running locally turns them into nodes and edges, and those link back to the facts they’re about. The result is a personal knowledge base that keeps growing, one that even a small local model can put to use. When I ask, it shows which facts were replaced by newer ones and where each came from. A small web app draws the whole graph as a night sky, and my agents reach it through its own tool server.
Local first, private by design
graph-brain listens on the local machine only and refuses a language model that isn’t on my Mac unless I explicitly allow one. Drydock has no server of its own and needs no API keys: it drives the agent tools I’m already signed into. Nothing I store leaves the machine unless I send it on purpose. That lets me put AI to work on real problems without giving up control of the data.
Product work
The through-line is integration. In 2003 I was wiring web applications into a COBOL business system. Today it’s storefronts, an ERP, partner APIs, and outside data providers.
- 2021 to now
Product Manager, Orders Value Stream, ABC Supply Co.
I own digital ordering across ABC Supply, ABC Supply Interiors, and ABC Supply Outdoor Solutions, from quote to delivery tracking. I started here as product owner for enterprise integrations.
- 2018 to 2021
Software Product Manager, MPOWR Envision
Led MPOWR Community from the drawing board to its first release, ran an overseas development team, and helped the company through its SOC 2 attestation.
- 2014 to 2018
Senior Programmer Analyst and Product Owner, SupplyCore
Managed development of the MPOWR case management software. Brought in Jira, Scrum, and a QA process.
- 2003 to 2014
IT Director, Warranty Processing, Inc.
Ran a network of more than 200 devices and wrote the customer-facing web applications, including the integration with the company’s COBOL business system.
- 1995 to 2003
Before software
IT consultant at Aaron’s Greenscape, general manager at CopyCo, and corporate trainer for eleven Kinko’s stores in the Chicago region.
2026 at ABC
- Ran the Orders side of bringing ABC Supply Interiors and ABC Supply Outdoor Solutions onto one digital ordering platform after the rebrand.
- Made it possible to create an order straight from a roof measurement report.
- Hardened the partner APIs that expose orders and invoices.
- Kept delivery steady while two product teams merged into one.
- When production broke, led the root-cause analysis and the fix.
How I work
I’m one corner of a product, design, and engineering triad, and I treat the work as something the team solves together. I get into the technical details with engineering and share what I learn with the other product teams. Stability before new features. Flow metrics over gut feel. I’m a Certified Scrum Product Owner.
What I’m working on next
The goal is ordering that plugs straight into the software contractors already run their businesses on. Getting there means:
- Moving upstream: deciding which problems are worth solving before anyone discusses how to build.
- Measuring outcomes: tying every major release to a business baseline and a KPI.
- Getting out in the field: branch ride-alongs and time with contractors, to see order-to-delivery firsthand.
- Delegating and coaching, so the team scales beyond what I can carry myself.
Taken apart
The same person does both jobs. This is how the parts line up.
- GrilleThe part the room sees: a lead vocalist, on stage since 1990.
- CapsuleWhere the signal starts: more than 20 years of building software.
- BodyThe part you hold: product management, from the problem to the release.
- ConnectorWhere it plugs in: stakeholders, developers, and customers.
On stage
I’ve been a lead vocalist in the Rockford area since 1990, with more than 1,000 shows behind me. Over the past ten years I’ve averaged 60 to 90 a year, most of them four-hour nights. These are the two projects you’re most likely to catch me in.
AudioDrive
Rock covers. Lead vocals and frontman since 2017.
Distilled
An acoustic project I started in 2018, with the songs stripped down.
I’m a board member of the RAMI Committee (Rockford Area Music Industry Awards), and I produced the In Memoriam video and design assets for the 35th annual awards. I’ve also sung with Journey2Jovi, covering the Bon Jovi leads and Gregg Rolie’s parts.
Before these
- 2015 to 2017
Power Trip
Rock covers.
- 2003 to 2012
Frontiers and All Lit Up
Frontiers played melodic and progressive rock from the 1970s and ’80s, in the vein of Boston, Journey, and Bon Jovi. All Lit Up played 2000s rock around the Chicago suburbs.
- 1998 to 1999
That ’80s Band
’80s pop and synth.
- 1994 to 1998
Minus May, Random Order, and RetroActive
Minus May was an original hard rock band and won the RAMI for Best Hard Rock. Random Order played originals too. RetroActive played ’80s pop and synth.
There were several other bands in between.
The workshop
I’m a designer as well as a builder. In my workshop I design and make one-of-a-kind commissioned pieces for special occasions: glassware, awards, patch hats, necklaces and other jewelry, and a lot more.
Lasers
I design projects for laser cutting and run several high-powered machines that cut and engrave all kinds of materials: MOPA, CO2, and blue diode lasers.
3D printing
I own and operate several 3D printers, including a five-color setup, and do the 3D modeling myself.
Full-color UV printing
I design projects for full-color 2.5D UV printing.
The home studio
I’ve been doing professional audio recording in my home studio for years, including paid voiceover work for commercials and festivals.
Games, built with AI agents
I build small games in Godot and work on the tooling that lets an agent prove a game runs, so my time goes to whether it’s fun. See my GitHub.