Actuary. Builder. Golfer.
Managing actuary by day. App builder by night. I lead an actuarial team, founded and lead an AI committee, and recently shipped a golf weather app to the App Store. Built it because I wanted to know if it was worth going outside.
Background
I'm an actuary. The role is part technical, part managerial, part constant presenting. I actually enjoy all three.
Numbers that drive real decisions. Pricing, reserving, financial strategy. Getting the math right gets you in the room. Explaining what it means to someone who has to act on it is the actual job.
Started using it, got obsessed, founded our AI committee, and built a Copilot agent that actually changed how my team works. That's what pushed me to go build something on my own.
I manage a team of actuaries and present constantly. I'd rather be in the room explaining than behind a spreadsheet alone.
Elmhurst, Illinois. Wife, three young kids, a house I've done a lot of work on, and a handicap I'm very much working on getting down.
Projects
I build things when a problem annoys me enough to solve it myself. The first real one was for golf.
Find Your Window
The origin story: I wanted to know if the weekend weather was actually worth booking a round. Standard weather apps give generic summaries, but I didn't need a 10-day forecast. I needed to isolate the exact two-hour window on Saturday that was prime for golf. So I decided to just build it.
Birdcast scores every day from 0 to 100 so you know before you go: Go, Caution, or No-Go. It weighs rain, wind, temperature, and humidity into one honest number. No five-app weather deep dive required. Bad morning, great afternoon? It breaks the next 7 days into morning, midday, and twilight so you can find your window. Two courses, one free afternoon? Line them up side by side and play the better one. Have a tee time? It scores the exact window of your round, tee to last putt, and reminds you the night before and two hours out.
"Cardinal for go, owl for rough, four more in between. It's the fastest read on the screen."
I think AI is genuinely interesting. What keeps me hooked is how much it actually changes what I can do. Built a Copilot agent at work that changed real workflows. That's what made me want to go build something of my own.
How I Think
Whether it's work or just regular life, I approach things the same way. Do the research, find the best option, don't overthink it, and go.
I shoot in the low-to-mid 100s and I'm obsessed with improving. I watch swing breakdowns, track my rounds, and built an app specifically to optimize when I play. I game Cobra irons and Cleveland wedges. The gear is dialed, the swing is a work in progress. The math brain and the golfer brain are closer than you'd think.
I've sourced and negotiated nearly everything in our home off Marketplace. High-quality furniture, real finds, a fraction of retail. It's a skill. You have to know what things are actually worth, move fast, and be willing to rent a box truck when needed.
I've ripped out carpet, cut out drywall, handled mold remediation, picked every paint color, sourced and negotiated a garage door replacement, and found and hired contractors for floor sanding and staining. I use Facebook groups and AI to research everything before I touch it.
I use AI constantly. Not as a shortcut, but as a way to actually learn things I couldn't have figured out on my own in any reasonable amount of time. React Native, cocktail recipes, medical coding, debugging errors I'd never seen before. The people who get the most out of it ask better questions.
I collect watches. Not flashy ones. I care about the movement, the history, whether something was actually engineered well. Lately I've been using AI to go deep on historical references before I pull the trigger on anything.
There's a right answer to "what should I make with what's in my bar right now." I use AI to find it. Flavor balance, what's actually in the cabinet, how much work I feel like doing. It's a real optimization problem.