I’ve been an avid woodworker since I was a teenager, using my dad’s inexpensive tools to create artifacts for myself, but as an adult, I owned homes and used my skills for home improvement and have been able to justify buying tools to offset the cost of hiring work out.

I honed my skills through trial and error—mostly error—but was never afraid to try to make or build something new. That typed, I don’t remember ever using a plan, pattern, or template but rather created all my own designs.

Of course, it helped that I got a mechanical engineering degree and started my career as a design engineer for an aerospace contractor, but I really wanted to move to the beach, so started on a different path. I had fallen in love with CAD that I was using to design missile servos and autopilots, so sought jobs in the CAD “business”.

Little did I know that that would turn into a 40 year career in enterprise software (the kind that businesses use to run their enterprises) that started with CAD/CAM/PDM—what is now known as Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)—and eventually transitioned into Enterprise Resource Management (ERP) specializing in manufacturing ERP that included Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), and now Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The final chapter—this one—takes me out of my high stress day and finds me in my workshop…my happy place!