§ the arc

about

Design → frontend → product → strategy → AI → platform governance. Each phase kept the tools of the one before it.

The short version: I'm a systems-first product leader in Dallas — Director, Product & Innovation at Team One. I'm the platform product lead for Lexus.com (~7–8M monthly users) across a 98-person digital organization and eight teams, founded the product owner discipline at Team One, and build production AI tools with my own hands — specced through CLAUDE.md files, built through agentic workflows, and shipped to production: the work fleet on an internal AWS container platform, the personal tools (and this site) on Railway. The motto that keeps showing up in my own documents: build something that works, scale it responsibly, and leave it stronger than it was before.

nine phases

01music theory & creative entrepreneurshipMusic theory and jazz guitar at Baylor. Composition is systems thinking with a time axis — voice leading, constraint, structure that has to resolve. Self-taught design and code on the side; led open mics; managed coffee shops. Craft, performance, and hospitality are in the foundation.2007–2011

02print production & operational disciplineArt director and production manager. CMYK across signage, vehicle wraps, vinyl, books. Print is where I learned respect for production constraints — there is no hotfix for ink.2013–2014

03healthcare IT creative systemsIn-house agency for a healthcare-adjacent network. PHP, WordPress, marketing automation, and versioning systems at scale — the first time I bridged creative work and backend systems for a living.2014–2016

04agency transformationAssociate director of digital products. Consolidated outsourced development in-house, cut project costs 30–40%, and repositioned digital from production service to strategic capability. First time I rebuilt an operating model instead of just operating in one.2016–2018

05enterprise accelerationTeam One, on the Lexus enterprise web ecosystem. Operated directly in AEM and dev consoles to collapse the translation loops between client and technical teams. The inflection point: I wanted ownership, not influence.2018–2021

06the slack experimentSenior experience consultant at Slack — Fortune 500 deployments, 10K+ user environments. A deliberate experiment that clarified the preference: I build durable systems. Advisory-only work, however good the company, is not that.2021–2022

07the platform rebuildBack at Team One as the first agency-side product owner. Led the Lexus & Toyota build & price rebuild end to end — backend services to Unreal asset pipelines. JD Power best in class, all OEMs. Proof that agencies can own platforms.2022–2024

08building the disciplineScaled the product owner function from one seat to a governed team of six, with product vision spanning a 98-person digital organization. Governance, prioritization clarity, structured roadmapping — inside a historically production-led org.2022–present

09product & innovation leadershipDirector, Product & Innovation: operationalizing AI — moving promising pilots and use cases into scalable, production-ready systems — while advancing the product practice across teams. Multi-year GR GT ecosystem architecture, the internal AI tooling suite, governance frameworks, and training across agency and client. The 2026 posture: govern AI, virtual production, and enterprise ecosystems as durable product platforms.2024–present

how I work

the profile, honestly

Quiet on the outside, decisive underneath — the assessments agree with the people who've worked with me. CliftonStrengths puts Relator first, then Futuristic, Strategic, Ideation, Activator: an architect who can execute, and who would rather bring a few people all the way along than work a room. Emergenetics calls it a bi-modal analytical-conceptual profile — I see the forest, then I model it.

The honest blind spots: details without purpose feel tiresome, rules-heavy cultures drain me, and abstract framing can lose people if I don't translate on purpose. I pull structural and social thinkers into big decisions because of it.

what I believe about leading

I lead through structure and clarity.
I believe in durable systems over performance theater.
I believe in empowering teams with clear guardrails and real ownership.
I believe innovation without governance is noise.

The model I want isn't the IC-versus-manager binary — it's platform ownership. Own what gets built and why, set the architectural direction, hold decision rights on prioritization, and stay close enough to the system to know when it's working. I lead through the system I design, not through relationship politics.

what I bring to a team at scale

I convert ambiguity into executable structure — specs, data models, phased roadmaps, decision lanes.
I build the discipline, not just the deliverable; the structures outlast me.
I collapse the translation layer — I've been the designer, the frontend dev, the PO, and the strategist, so I speak every layer's language and know what each one costs.
I unblock personally when velocity demands it, and model the execution standard while doing it.
I upskill the org, not just myself — AI training across agency and client teams, with governance attached.

Off the clock: jazz guitar, morning coffee walks with my wife Abbey (where most of the essays start), and a standing argument in favor of four-day weeks. Dallas, by way of Baton Rouge.

what I'm doing now →