About

I am the Chief Product Officer for metaport. We believe that stories connect us across time and place. I create the magic to make stories transform your travel so that rather than just going to a place, you learn about the local people and their place. I also hope that you can connect to people in a foreign land as if they were acquaintances, if not friends. During my junior high years, I had wonderful English, English literature, and film literature teachers in Ms. Estin and Mrs. Hinman at Lyman Gilmore Middle School in Grass Valley. I thrived in their classes and very much enjoyed reading and analyzing literature. My absolute favorite genre is science fiction because I could be transported to different worlds and explore so many “what if” scenarios. As a child, I read many works from science fiction grand masters such as Heinlein, Asimov, and Herbert. I still enjoy science fiction when I have a few free moments. With my strong interest in math, science, and technology, I went to MIT to earn degrees in electrical engineering and computer science. I returned home to California, where I had a nearly 30-year career in the semiconductor industry. I designed and defined many chips, which have cumulatively generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. My team and I directly supported very well-known consumer electronics companies. I have been granted more than twenty patents. I traveled extensively for both business and pleasure, accumulating more than 1,000,000 miles on United Airlines. I lived in Milan in the year 2000 and took two long vacations in Italy and tried to see a different city every weekend. Although I never lived there, I estimate that between six months to eighteen months of my life have been spent in Japan for business and personal reasons, as my wife is originally from Tokyo. Over ten years ago, I took Stanford d.school classes to learn about human needs, brainstorming, rapid prototyping, user interviews, and listening. These skills are most relevant as I create new products at metaport. Please contact me at [email protected] if you would like to discuss any new product ideas.