Field Notes
Not a resume. A narrative. The career told the way it actually happened — which is to say, nothing went according to plan and everything compounded.
Walked in as a temp to reconcile nine back months of American Express statements. The plan was to pay rent. There was no five-year plan, no career strategy, no vision. Just a chair, a stack of statements, and a willingness to show up before everyone else.
Accounting turned into "can you also look at inventory?" Inventory turned into "can you also figure out why these orders are wrong?" Orders turned into "can you just... make the whole thing work?" The role expanded not because anyone gave me a promotion, but because the problems kept finding me and I kept saying yes.
Led the migration from QuickBooks to Microsoft Dynamics GP. If you've never migrated an ERP, imagine replacing every pipe in a building while people are still showering. Chart of accounts, vendor records, customer data, inventory, historical transactions — all had to move correctly or the financial statements would be fiction. They moved correctly.
Got sober. Everything that follows — every system built, every close completed, every skill learned — was built on this. Not mentioned for sympathy. Mentioned because it's true, and because it changed the way I approach everything: show up, do the work, build systems that don't depend on heroics.
Built and deployed EDI infrastructure for Walmart, Home Depot, and a growing roster of trading partners. Learned that EDI compliance is less like programming and more like international diplomacy — every partner has different rules, different interpretations of those rules, and different consequences for getting it wrong. Walmart chargebacks taught me more about precision than any textbook.
Taught myself SQL because nobody else would. Started writing queries to answer questions that the ERP couldn't answer natively. Built the company's first Power BI dashboards. Replaced the two-day reporting ritual with real-time visualizations. The CFO could suddenly see the business without calling three people first. It was the closest thing to magic I've ever produced.
By this point, the role had fully compounded into something unusual: I was effectively running accounting, IT, EDI, reporting, and system administration as a one-person department. Rather than hire help (that wasn't my call), I automated. Python scripts, Power Automate flows, custom SQL procedures — anything that could be done by a machine was given to a machine. Eliminated over 1,000 FTE hours annually. Improved order processing efficiency by 40%.
Added Amazon and AutoZone to the EDI portfolio. Each came with its own flavor of complexity — Amazon's relentless pace, AutoZone's specific requirements. Built new integrations, refined existing ones, and continued to be the single point of institutional knowledge for a company doing $50M+ in revenue.
Enrolled in the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Executive CTO Program. Began building OpsLedger — a platform to connect operational events to financial truth in real time. Started consulting independently, bringing everything I've learned to manufacturing companies that need the same kind of transformation I built from the inside. The difference now is that I've done it once, I've studied the theory, and I can do it in months instead of years.
Fifteen years of field notes, one conversation. Let's talk about your systems.
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