Biography
I previously attended Northern Michigan University, where I obtained my 2-year degree in General Business. From there I joined the U.S. Navy, where I served for 5-years (2004 to 2009). I was honorably discharged in 2009, where I transitioned to civilian life and began working with an amazing company called TexelTek, in Maryland. I’m now a graduate of the University of Phoenix, where I obtained my Bachelor's Degree in Business Management in 2014.
TexelTek is where I was offered the unique opportunity to work in an agile environment, and I had no idea what I was doing! However, I had amazing teammates and was given training to become a Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), which I completed in January 2009. One of my mentors, when it came to Scrum and other business practices, is Alex Chin. Alex taught me how to practically implement the principles of Scrum as it relates to various teams, and to him I owe a great deal of gratitude – thank you, Alex. Working on this team, proved to me, that anyone can learn the benefits of Scrum and teach others what they've experienced so others might benefit. Because of my time with Alex, his mentorship, and deep understanding of Scrum, has allowed me to mentor others and attempt to do for others what Alex did for me.
I started with a brand new team and worked with them until we became a well-formed team (WFT). The team worked so well together we were actually able to split the team into multiple feature teams, which increased our productivity. Our velocity was well averaged, which allowed us to better predict our capacity as a team and consistently deliver to our customer.
I spent nearly 5-years with TexelTek where we used scrum methodologies to develop software solutions for our government customer. The team spent nearly 4-years together working towards various goals. We were able to build up to monthly software releases, due to the fact we were following the scrum methodology by incrementally delivering usable software solutions. Sadly, as all things do, my time at TexelTek came to end in late 2013 – when I moved back to my home state of Michigan.
I’ve found I have better success with starting and helping form teams up and getting them to a place where they are self-sufficient and then moving on and letting them run. I find it to be extremely rewarding and enjoyable to see teams that are lost and show them the benefits of scrum, get them realigned and help them become a successful team.
I have so much more to learn, and look forward to the new clients and new teammates I get to work with in the future. Hopefully I can be to my teammates what Alex was to me, and hopefully those people can be an Alex to their future teammates.
I continue to learn from those around me and continue to reach out to those who taught me early on. I truly believe we can all continue to better our teams and ourselves by being agile in our personal lives.
Because of my training, experience, and guidance from wonderful teammates and I’ve been able to take my knowledge and background in this area with me to Michigan. I’ve been able to apply my skills and knowledge it to companies more known for their software development, using waterfall. Being able to take agile software development to customers who are used to the waterfall approach, and show them agile produces less waste and more functionality and less cost has proved to be personally rewarding.
I have found I have better success with starting and helping form teams up and getting them to a place where they are self-sufficient and then moving on and letting them run. I find it to be extremely rewarding and enjoyable to see teams that are lost and show them the benefits of agile.
I currently work with a winning and wonderful team at the Domino’s World Resource Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I have the privilege of working with the eCommerce team where we get to develop new and disruptive technologies – allowing our customers to conveniently and quickly place orders from Domino’s. We have a great team and we’re constantly trying to improve and learn, so we can continue to deliver and support our team at Domino’s and our awesome customers!