“Beware of overconcern for money, or position, or glory. Someday you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are.” — Rudyard Kipling
Me (pic taken June 2020).
BUSINESS/ CAREER
I've held senior team-leader and always hybrid INTERNAL fused with EXTERNAL (more about this fusion below) positions/ roles with several small- and medium-sized businesses ("SMB[s]") in the San Francisco Bay Area, all either young or brand-new branch offices/ strategic business units ("SBUs") of a SMB, or, new or established SMBs launched by 1st-time entrepreneurs who left big employers to go solo or start their own SMB.
They include: a RDBMS/ SQL company; a staffing/ recruitment firm; an advertising company; and, 3 boutique law firms. All six of the foregoing are/ were at their cores consulting and advisory organizations. And, as any Bain or McKinsey or Allen & Company alum would agree, true and competent consulting means being, intellectually and psychologically, a temporary de facto co-owner of one's clients'/ customers' businesses. For a brief moment or longer, consulting gives the consultant an enviable "back stage pass" to clients'/ customers' most privileged and confidential trade and operations secrets.
Meanwhile, the adage "those who can, do; those who can’t, teach" never applies to true and competent consulting. A consulting organization must be a going concern itself to be able to advise other organizations to stay such, or become such.
INTERNAL:
My internal roles have overseen the operations of HR; IT; legal; accounting; knowledge management; vendor relations; project management; websites & social media; landlord relations; customer service; sales; collections; telecom; banking; marketing/ new business development; purchasing; meetings & travel arrangements; and insurance/ risk monitoring.
My internal accomplishments have included: 5x an operations lead or co-lead; 4x a HR lead; 4x an 'intra'preneur leading the start-up of new branch offices/ SBUs or departments; and, 1x an employee #1.
EXTERNAL:
While in the staffing/ recruitment industry, I performed prospecting to potential customers to market temporary ("temp") and direct-hire staffing services, and worked with recruiting teams to select talent for placements with customers, which included: law firms; insurance companies; department stores; real estate companies; high rise property management/ building security companies; e-commerce companies; concerts/ nightclubs; and others. At any given time I had over 25 temp workers on assignments out in the field, and with customers’ reps (my placements' line managers) I helped co-manage certain temp workers for brief times when situations warranted.
While in the cable TV advertising industry, I identified and persuaded local businesses to purchase advertising/ run commercial spots, prepared advertising contracts for customers’ campaigns, and teamed up with customers and their chosen video production teams to script and produce 30-second commercial spots from scratch, or adopt/ re-tool their previously produced spots, to run "on the air." My largely “mom & pop” customers included owners and/ or management of: a restaurant; 4 car dealerships; a dental practice; a big-screen TV and appliance store; 2 furniture stores; a gas station; an auto body shop; a high-end pawn shop/ jewelry store; a bank; a go-kart racing track; a tires store; an auto show at a convention center; a carpet cleaning business; and a few others.
Presently, working in the legal services industry, I’ve 35x+ been a senior member of legal teams providing consulting and advocacy services to companies (many cyclically as repeat/ regular clients) in regards to HR compliance, pre-litigation & litigated business disputes, California LLC registration and LLC manager(s)/ member(s) and ownership structuring, and related matters. The organizations served include: an art gallery; a pharmaceutical company; several game companies; a food distributor; the "family office" of a former founder/ CEO of an oil company; a motorcycle components company; a liquor store; a realtor firm; a promotional items/ "see before you buy" company; a law firm; a veterinary clinic; a beer brewery; a mortgage brokerage company; a medical billing service; a specialty foods company; an engineering firm; a soft drink/ beverage company; a VR company; a clinical statistical programming company (serving biotech and medical devices customers); and others.
On the flip side, I've also 120x+ been a senior member of legal advocacy teams helping individual employees (including 3 public company CEOs, at least 7 private company CEOs, over 20 CFOs, COOs & SVPs, plus scores of scientists, founders, salespeople, attorneys, I.T. personnel, HR directors, admin assistants, and others) assert their claims against some of the biggest names in: social media; electric cars; VR; cell phones; biotech; vaping; enterprise software; multimedia software; networking equipment; on-line auctioning; e-commerce; on-line payments; medical devices; billionaire "family offices"; flash memory products; SaaS; semiconductors; VCs; games; telecom; mobile applications; and search engines. As a result, I've enjoyed a "backstage pass" to 120+ Silicon Valley lawyered-up employee off-boards and on-boards, involving many iconic companies providing the products and services listed above, and, a few involving direct reports to: Tim Cook, Larry Ellison, Patrick Soon-Shiong, Eric Schmidt, Palmer Luckey, and Michael Novogratz, as well as direct reports to members of Jeff Bezos' and Elon Musk's C-suite inner circles.
EDUCATION
I hold a Master of Journalism from the University of California -- Berkeley. (Prior to and while earning my master's degree, I had 50+ articles/ news stories published in 4 news outlets, one of the outlets in Washington DC. During the course of my news reporting career, I had the privilege to interview hundreds of people from all walks of life, including scientists, politicians, community organizers, labor union reps, CEOs, an iconic actress, authors, university professors and administrators, law enforcement officers, and, Admiral Bobby Ray Inman [perhaps the most renowned former director of the National Security Agency, or NSA].)
I hold a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies from the University of California -- Santa Barbara (UCSB), where I primarily studied East European history, the Latin language, and the works of William Shakespeare. (While at UCSB, I was honored to have been mentored for most of an academic year by a visiting professor from Hungary, Géza Jeszenszky, who later became his country's Minister of Foreign Affairs and then Ambassador to the United States.)
ROOTS
I was born and raised in two suburbs (Springdale, and then Wyoming) north of Cincinnati, OH. In my teens I was a member of the Wyoming middle school and high school varsity football, track & field, and wrestling teams. Growing up, I also spent a lot of time visiting family in Springboro and Centerville, two then rural communities outside of Dayton, OH.
According to my 23andMe results, genetically I am 99.3% European, with my ancestors hailing from: Poland (Podkarpackie and Podlaskie); Ukraine (Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk); Switzerland (Bern and Zurich); and Germany (Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria).
TRAVELS
My travels have included 30+ U.S. states, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the U.K., Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany (including East Berlin, before reunification), Austria, and Italy.
PERSONAL
In my spare time I'm a kettlebells and animal flow practitioner, and a beginner Pilates and UFC Gym student.
I'm also a regular donor to people and organizations advocating for/ saving: cats and dogs abandoned in shelters; sex trafficked children; monkeys, rats, rabbits and other animals tortured in laboratories; cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, and other animals abused and slaughtered by the billions on factory farms; and, Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine.
And, to ☦️ & ✝️ ministries.
I've held senior team-leader and always hybrid INTERNAL fused with EXTERNAL (more about this fusion below) positions/ roles with several small- and medium-sized businesses ("SMB[s]") in the San Francisco Bay Area, all either young or brand-new branch offices/ strategic business units ("SBUs") of a SMB, or, new or established SMBs launched by 1st-time entrepreneurs who left big employers to go solo or start their own SMB.
They include: a RDBMS/ SQL company; a staffing/ recruitment firm; an advertising company; and, 3 boutique law firms. All six of the foregoing are/ were at their cores consulting and advisory organizations. And, as any Bain or McKinsey or Allen & Company alum would agree, true and competent consulting means being, intellectually and psychologically, a temporary de facto co-owner of one's clients'/ customers' businesses. For a brief moment or longer, consulting gives the consultant an enviable "back stage pass" to clients'/ customers' most privileged and confidential trade and operations secrets.
Meanwhile, the adage "those who can, do; those who can’t, teach" never applies to true and competent consulting. A consulting organization must be a going concern itself to be able to advise other organizations to stay such, or become such.
INTERNAL:
My internal roles have overseen the operations of HR; IT; legal; accounting; knowledge management; vendor relations; project management; websites & social media; landlord relations; customer service; sales; collections; telecom; banking; marketing/ new business development; purchasing; meetings & travel arrangements; and insurance/ risk monitoring.
My internal accomplishments have included: 5x an operations lead or co-lead; 4x a HR lead; 4x an 'intra'preneur leading the start-up of new branch offices/ SBUs or departments; and, 1x an employee #1.
EXTERNAL:
While in the staffing/ recruitment industry, I performed prospecting to potential customers to market temporary ("temp") and direct-hire staffing services, and worked with recruiting teams to select talent for placements with customers, which included: law firms; insurance companies; department stores; real estate companies; high rise property management/ building security companies; e-commerce companies; concerts/ nightclubs; and others. At any given time I had over 25 temp workers on assignments out in the field, and with customers’ reps (my placements' line managers) I helped co-manage certain temp workers for brief times when situations warranted.
While in the cable TV advertising industry, I identified and persuaded local businesses to purchase advertising/ run commercial spots, prepared advertising contracts for customers’ campaigns, and teamed up with customers and their chosen video production teams to script and produce 30-second commercial spots from scratch, or adopt/ re-tool their previously produced spots, to run "on the air." My largely “mom & pop” customers included owners and/ or management of: a restaurant; 4 car dealerships; a dental practice; a big-screen TV and appliance store; 2 furniture stores; a gas station; an auto body shop; a high-end pawn shop/ jewelry store; a bank; a go-kart racing track; a tires store; an auto show at a convention center; a carpet cleaning business; and a few others.
Presently, working in the legal services industry, I’ve 35x+ been a senior member of legal teams providing consulting and advocacy services to companies (many cyclically as repeat/ regular clients) in regards to HR compliance, pre-litigation & litigated business disputes, California LLC registration and LLC manager(s)/ member(s) and ownership structuring, and related matters. The organizations served include: an art gallery; a pharmaceutical company; several game companies; a food distributor; the "family office" of a former founder/ CEO of an oil company; a motorcycle components company; a liquor store; a realtor firm; a promotional items/ "see before you buy" company; a law firm; a veterinary clinic; a beer brewery; a mortgage brokerage company; a medical billing service; a specialty foods company; an engineering firm; a soft drink/ beverage company; a VR company; a clinical statistical programming company (serving biotech and medical devices customers); and others.
On the flip side, I've also 120x+ been a senior member of legal advocacy teams helping individual employees (including 3 public company CEOs, at least 7 private company CEOs, over 20 CFOs, COOs & SVPs, plus scores of scientists, founders, salespeople, attorneys, I.T. personnel, HR directors, admin assistants, and others) assert their claims against some of the biggest names in: social media; electric cars; VR; cell phones; biotech; vaping; enterprise software; multimedia software; networking equipment; on-line auctioning; e-commerce; on-line payments; medical devices; billionaire "family offices"; flash memory products; SaaS; semiconductors; VCs; games; telecom; mobile applications; and search engines. As a result, I've enjoyed a "backstage pass" to 120+ Silicon Valley lawyered-up employee off-boards and on-boards, involving many iconic companies providing the products and services listed above, and, a few involving direct reports to: Tim Cook, Larry Ellison, Patrick Soon-Shiong, Eric Schmidt, Palmer Luckey, and Michael Novogratz, as well as direct reports to members of Jeff Bezos' and Elon Musk's C-suite inner circles.
EDUCATION
I hold a Master of Journalism from the University of California -- Berkeley. (Prior to and while earning my master's degree, I had 50+ articles/ news stories published in 4 news outlets, one of the outlets in Washington DC. During the course of my news reporting career, I had the privilege to interview hundreds of people from all walks of life, including scientists, politicians, community organizers, labor union reps, CEOs, an iconic actress, authors, university professors and administrators, law enforcement officers, and, Admiral Bobby Ray Inman [perhaps the most renowned former director of the National Security Agency, or NSA].)
I hold a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies from the University of California -- Santa Barbara (UCSB), where I primarily studied East European history, the Latin language, and the works of William Shakespeare. (While at UCSB, I was honored to have been mentored for most of an academic year by a visiting professor from Hungary, Géza Jeszenszky, who later became his country's Minister of Foreign Affairs and then Ambassador to the United States.)
ROOTS
I was born and raised in two suburbs (Springdale, and then Wyoming) north of Cincinnati, OH. In my teens I was a member of the Wyoming middle school and high school varsity football, track & field, and wrestling teams. Growing up, I also spent a lot of time visiting family in Springboro and Centerville, two then rural communities outside of Dayton, OH.
According to my 23andMe results, genetically I am 99.3% European, with my ancestors hailing from: Poland (Podkarpackie and Podlaskie); Ukraine (Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk); Switzerland (Bern and Zurich); and Germany (Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria).
TRAVELS
My travels have included 30+ U.S. states, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the U.K., Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany (including East Berlin, before reunification), Austria, and Italy.
PERSONAL
In my spare time I'm a kettlebells and animal flow practitioner, and a beginner Pilates and UFC Gym student.
I'm also a regular donor to people and organizations advocating for/ saving: cats and dogs abandoned in shelters; sex trafficked children; monkeys, rats, rabbits and other animals tortured in laboratories; cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, and other animals abused and slaughtered by the billions on factory farms; and, Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine.
And, to ☦️ & ✝️ ministries.