My career journey started with hard core product engineering, working for the medical division of Eastman Kodak. As a young adult I lost my mother to breast cancer and it was an obsession for me to make a difference in the medical field. I learned that at times people could make technology decisions without any context on how those decisions might impact the ultimate customer, a patient. I fought hard for using virtual models and analysis to improve engineering quality and released many successful products into the marketplace. During that engineering tenure I held many technical and managerial positions.
Through my hard-earned experience I learned the only reason technology exists is to serve a human purpose. Technology alone is not the ultimate answer, making life more valuable for someone is.
After my design engineering experience I moved to the core of Kodak and became the Director of the Engineering Center where my teams covered the Mechanical Engineering IT, Systems Engineering and Finite Element Analysis needs for the company. Through these experiences I learned the value that harmonized process, when combined with excellent engineering content can bring to the successes of many diverse types of projects. I also represented R&D in the spin off of a major unit from Kodak to
ITT Systems which for the first time exposed me to the art of splitting companies.
I was then asked to join Carestream Health and drive harmonization and process maturity across the globe and across functions. The company was a new carve out and as we gained traction in the market place, I had the unique opportunity to support the CTO and CIO simultaneously, due to my extensive background.
As we built out standard information systems across all engineering functions and tackled the tough job of maturing processes and integrating systems globally, I learned how to lead complex enterprise-level system implementations and align people across the world and vertically within an organization. I took some contrarian technology positions during this tenure to maximize value, leveraging open source software to build out the commercialization infrastructure. This was unheard of for a company competing in a regulated industry. I used open source technology to solve the organizations problems instead of using legacy technology that missed the mark. I found myself speaking at many industry events and being interviewed frequently as these once contrarian ideas became more mainstream across the industry over the last several years.
My in depth IT and R&D experience allowed me to see the value of data as an asset way before the recent explosion of the IoT. As an early adopter of IoT technology, I was able to combine my product commercialization, IT and engineering background and leverage the innovation potential that these technologies brought to the table. Having transformed several businesses with data at Carestream, I can fully appreciate the significant opportunity and challenges that digital transformation presents to business and society in general. As an avid technology enthusiast and evangelist I can also visualize the significant potential that digital transformation will bring to advancing human safety, culture and standards of living world wide.
My career experiences and interests have positioned me well to see the intersection of technology and business value. Digital transformation truly relies on the maturity of the functions within a healthy business. In tomorrows world, the ability to work together, identify market opportunities and execute in a controlled way will be a real competitive differentiator for companies. Having the ability to find and vet companies that have the potential to disrupt and serve markets in new and differentiated way ideally meshes my experiences and passion. As a member of the Sandstorm team I look forward to working together and sharing experiences that someday may change the world we live in.