This caring bear went to Saint Francis University in Loretto, Pennsylvania. He graduated magna cum laude with not one but TWO honors theses — the first and only little bear in the whole Kingdom of Caring to ever pull that off! One was about quantum chemistry simulations (he got to play with an insulin protein 🧬) and the other built a 3D digital model of the entire campus without a single brick or board. He also served as Student Government VP, ran the Chemistry Club to a national award, and cultivated an ongoing love for math, computer science, and chemistry.
Fresh out of the honeycomb, he worked at the Center of Excellence for Remote and Medically Under-Served Areas, a DoD-funded telehealth lab. The Army and Navy asked him to help bears in faraway forests communicate during emergencies — ad-hoc radios, bioterror first response, mobile robots with GPS, that sort of thing. He even wrote a brief on underground communication techniques for the SEPTA transit authority. Very hush-hush! 🤫
Then he founded a whole forest of startups. There was Dimples, Inc., where he invented magical fonts that use 30% less ink (he patented them and everything 🎉). Big-deal human companies like Monotype, J&J, and Walmart came knocking. Then Mad Dog Environmental, which made goop that locks up shale-gas wastewater so it doesn’t hurt groundwater. Then Pipeguard Robotics, which built little leak-detection drones that swim through water pipes. That one won the Booz Allen Data Analytics Prize (#1 out of 150 candidates!), the MIT Innovation Water Prize, and got into Y Combinator’s finals. He also got nominated for Forbes 30 Under 30 and named Western Pennsylvania Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Seven startups in total! That’s a lot of caring. 🏆
He galloped off to MIT in Cambridge, where he earned a Master’s in Engineering & Management through the Integrated Design & Management program, with a 4.8 out of 5.0 GPA. His thesis was about inventing temporary tattoos that glow under infrared light to help doctors find veins for hemodialysis needles. True story. There’s a patent pending. He also co-authored papers in Science Translational Medicine and PNAS. 💉✨
After that he got invited into the very mysterious X Lab at Alphabet (home of Google’s moonshots). He was on the 10X Collective and Rapid Evaluation Team, doing primary research on causal systems, multimodal scientific learning, and chaos modeling. But he’s not allowed to talk about it too much! (He signed a non-disclosure.) 🤫
Then he joined Airbus Ventures as Technology Principal, where for 3 years he stewarded deca-millions of Care-a-Lot bucks into the deepest of deep-tech startups — aerospace, quantum sciences, cybersecurity, propulsion, autonomous systems. He managed top-of-funnel deal flow across AMER, EMEA, and APAC for a $300M+ fund. Their team became one of the Top 10 Quantum Investors globally! The specific companies? Well — even caring bears honor their NDAs. Those names are locked inside the Hall of Hearts behind a glowing friendship padlock 🔒💖 [tap to peek inside]
Now he teaches at MIT (!!), where he leads the program called Dual-Use Ventures — startups that serve both private AND government clients. He also invented MIT’s very first course in sensemaking, called “Confronting Unknowns”, which covers AI, aerospace safety, and unidentified anomalous phenomena 🛸 (yes really). He co-teaches Translational Engineering with Prof. Carlo Giovanni Traverso and facilitates MIT’s Robotics Essentials and AI for Enterprise certification courses. He also contracts with Trusted Strategic Solutions on microelectronics and national-security stuff that he definitely cannot elaborate on here.
Meanwhile he co-hosts Tough Tech Today, the premier podcast for frontier-tech trailblazers, and publishes The End Effector, a publication for the science-advantaged startup community. He also volunteers for Americans for Safe Aerospace (the world’s largest UAP advocacy org), works with MIT Sandbox to coach student founders, and volunteers at the Head of the Charles Regatta every year. Because tough tech bears gotta share the caring. 💞
When he’s not caring about frontier technology, he’s working on his Doctor of Engineering at Penn State (complex systems!), running marathons barefoot (Harvard Medical School studied him! 👣), playing the saxophone (12 years!), drumming with a West African ensemble, sculling on the Charles, or studying for his Private Pilot License. ✈️
