Leadership impact

Founding and scaling an AI department

ORBIS, Inc. · defense engineering and R&D · Aug 2020 – Jan 2026

core AI engineers, department founded as its only engineer

1 → 10

on programs across departments, contract experts, and government partners

30+

Challenge

A defense engineering and R&D firm wanted applied AI but had no team, standards, or delivery record in it.

What I led

Founded the department as its first engineer and owned AI/ML strategy from problem definition through production deployment.

Outcome

AI department scaled from 1 to 10 core engineers; programs of 30+ led across departments, contractors, and government partners.

AI defect recognition approved for submarine-construction shipyards

ORBIS, Inc. · DoD program · 2020 – 2026

three consecutive DoD contracts

~$7M

approval for shipyard integration

DoD

Challenge

Inspectors review radiographic imagery of welds and castings where a missed defect has physical consequences.

What I led

Procured and led three consecutive DoD contracts worth approximately $7M.

Outcome

Department of Defense approval for shipyard integration on submarine builds.

Secure, locally deployed LLMs and the governance around them

ORBIS, Inc. · DoD portfolio · 2023 – Jan 2026

Challenge

Teams were told AI was off the table for security reasons.

What I led

Designed, trained, and deployed locally secured LLMs for workflow control, on-premises end to end.

Outcome

Language models deployed and operating entirely inside secure local environments.

Ship-state forecasting and a hardware cost removed

ORBIS, Inc. · Trim Management platform · 2021 – 2026

hardware cost removed from every unit sold

~$10K

university STEM program built on the platform

3-year

Challenge

The platform needed reliable ship-state prediction under shipboard conditions, including warning of parametric roll, while its per-unit hardware cost included an RTK positioning dependency.

What I led

Led sensor-fusion and time-series forecasting for ship-state prediction.

Outcome

Parametric-roll detection achieved from fused shipboard sensor data.

An agentic proposal engine with its own evaluation layer

Frontier Design LLC · Jan 2026 – Jun 2026

rubric dimensions in the self-score

8

strictness control on the validated autograder

0–10

Challenge

Proposals, concept notes, and two-pagers drew on past projects that lived mostly in people's memory.

What I led

Architected and built the proposal and whitepaper engine on Claude.

Outcome

Engine used to produce federal and commercial proposals, concept notes, and two-pagers.