I am a co-founder and co-leader of the Writing Journey, a community of 250+ writers and authors mostly in the cities and suburbs of Chicago. I am an author of speculative fiction, fantasy and science fiction stories. Many of my short stories and poems are published in anthologies of the Writing Journey. My work interests include DevOps, inner source patterns, cloud robotics, cloud/virtualization, middleware, network management and security software, open source software, web architecture and web application design. I also have experience in test automation with the Ixia IxCatapult, the use of fuzzy logic in uncertainty assessment, test automation via perl and WinRunner, and usable web design.

From 1995 through 1997, I was a Senior Engineer at Aon Risk Technologies/ Impact Forecasting. This company's focus was on the use of engineering risk and reliability methods to estimate insurance loss due to potential natural hazards.

Graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Ph.D. in civil engineering. My research over the years has focused upon software test automation, uncertainty analysis, fuzzy logic, structural reliability, structural control, and engineering mechanics.

I was a Municipal Liaison (ML) for the Illinois::Naperville region of National Novel Writing Month from 2005-2024, when I decided to leave NaNoWriMo due to disagreements with the then-leadership. With other like-minded MLs, we created the Writing Quests framework and Novel Quest as a specific event that used the framework.

My co-MLs and I created Novel Quest; we use it today with our region.

In 2025, I joined a small team of volunteers who worked with NaNoWriMo founder Chris Baty to create NaNo 2.0, an effort to help people who would benefit from National Novel Writing Month after the original non-profit organization failed and was shut down.

My hobbies include: web design, Perl, Linux, sf and fantasy, writing, cartooning and illustration, tennis, cooking, and ballroom dance.