MY JOURNEY
#dronelife
What I’m up to now…
Drone photography - I’m now an FAA certified and licensed remote pilot for aerial/drone photography. I started shooting with a Mavic Pro drone for commercial clients but then stumbled upon a new perspective of the world from 500 feet! Check out my latest artworks from my drone adventures.
Family - I have a 7 year old daughter who also stars in many of our travel photoshoots! See our travel pics…
Sandhill Studio - Through my travels and taking professional photography courses at Stanford I combined my love of photography with my love of working with people and customers to start a creative strategy firm that helps companies use images to tell their story. We’ve worked with some amazing clients including startups like One Concern and large companies like Apple and Google. Visit my corporate site at Sandhill.Studio.
“I’ve spent the majority of my career negotiating and training people to negotiate. Along the way I’ve made plenty of mistakes and learned that negotiation can often be improved by actually doing the opposite of what I’d originally think to do.”
NFL
Check out my NFL page for my fantasy league activities.
Fantasy football is basically like trading. I really like the negotiation part about it. See my article in Quartz “The mistakes everyone makes negotiating, and what to do instead”.
Writing & Publishing
Visit my Writing page for articles published in top publications including Fortune, Inc., Time and the BBC. Topics include Negotiation, Career Advice and Technology.
I was a Top Writer on Quora for 4 years with over 27 million views and nearly 50k subscribers. Quora is the leading internet question and answer platform with over 300 million unique visitors per month.
Tech
I’ve worked with some cool companies from high growth crash and burn startups like PayByTouch to tech giants like Cisco and HP.
I loved building these teams and growing these products and living on the road and working on the frontlines hands on with customers…
That’s me in the Chicago newspaper during my time at PayByTouch, March 22, 2006
See my article in Forbes “What's It Like To Have Your Startup Fail?”
My story: Pay By Touch (PBT), a SF based start-up that aimed to revolutionize the way the world pays. My role was customer facing. As the Account Manager for our largest client, SuperValu (a grocery leader), I spent years on the road at Albertson's stores in Portland, Cub Foods in Minneapolis, and Jewel-Osco in Chicago.
My team and I spent our time in the stores talking to all types of customers: ranging from grocery shoppers, store workers, our corporate sponsors, new potential clients, to hedge fund and individual investors. We heard everything from "is PBT the Mark of the Beast?" to "What happens if they cut off my finger." To the first: no. To the second: go to the hospital. Incidentally, the sensors were heat and pulse sensitive and wouldn't work if your finger dropped below a certain temperature or loses its pulse, something we learned the hard way in the frigid Chicago winters.
We lived in corporate apartments, drove rental cars, bought lots of candy and junk food with our fingers at the stores, got to know the community, and wore an attractive array of corporate swag. My closet was filled with PBT gear. I bought and wore hideous neon green pants and tank tops. They were such stables of my wardrobe, I didn't even think to expense them.
Finance
I started my career in finance working with top firms like Morgan Stanley, Capital Group and Robertson Stephens. I held NASD Series 7, 55, & 63 certifications.
“there are plenty of downsides to day trading, but feeling pointless is not one of them.”
See my article in Quartz: “The risk and reward of picking your battles”
When I managed a sales and trading team, a lot of my time was spent adjudicating battles within my team, fighting my own battles, and fighting my team’s battles. To determine if a battle was worth fighting, I evaluated three main components: the culture, the battle, and the outcome.
Alma mater
While doing my undergrad at Brown, I used to drive back and forth across the country between my home in Napa Valley, California and Providence, Rhode Island. Sometimes I did it straight in 72 hours or with friends!
I did a food styling class at Stanford (check out my Droolworthy Album of food photography at Sandhill Studio).
At Stanford I completed the Industrial and Financial Accounting Program and various courses in Professional Photography.
Early life…
I grew up in Napa Valley and went to Vintage High School.
I'm a life long vegetarian. My parents raised me as a vegetarian (it's mainstream now, but when I was growing up in the 80s it was very unusual).
See my article in the Huffington Post An Unexpected Benefit to Raising Your Child as a Vegetarian”
I visited India 8 times as a kid. See some of my writings about India here
“The best thing about being raised a vegetarian, is that it taught me from a young age to withstand peer pressure.”