Why repair a vehicle with a hand tool when you have power tools at your disposal?

I joined the Navy at 18 and spent the next thirteen years in supply and logistics, mostly aboard submarines. The Mediterranean. The Pacific. Korea.

Places where getting the right part to the right boat on the right day wasn't an inconvenience if you got it wrong — it was a real problem for real people underwater. I learned how to run operations where failure isn't an option, where you plan for contingencies nobody wants to think about, and where the people under you need to know you'll get in the ditch with them if it comes to it.

I was responsible for teams of twenty-plus sailors. I learned what good leadership looks like, and what bad leadership costs.

Near the end of my Navy career, I started working for one of the largest oilfield services companies in the world. I began as a mud logger offshore, moved to measurement-while-drilling, and by the end of my time there I was a directional driller.

Most of my work was the Gulf of Mexico and Texas, but I took overseas rotations too — Korea and a few others. The work itself was exactly what I wanted: real engineering, real consequences, high-tech equipment in hostile environments.

I was running survey tools two miles underground, managing data flow between rig sites and the home office, troubleshooting mud motors and bit technology, dealing with magnetic interference on sensor arrays. For a stint I was in the home office coordinating data flow across thirteen active wells at once.

I'd been away from my family for too long. Years of rotations, deployments, and offshore hitches. So I made a choice most people in my position don't: I traded the high-dollar field engineering career for something that let me sleep in my own bed.

Automotive had always been in the background for me. My first job was at a car wash. I worked parts, I worked sales, and eventually I ended up running a shop. I'm also the owner of one of the largest automotive events in New Hampshire — the kind of work that keeps me connected to the enthusiast side of this industry, not just the service side.

What I do now sits at the intersection of everything that came before. AI is the latest tool on my bench — the same way measurement-while-drilling equipment was a new tool in the oil patch twenty years ago, and supply chain software was a new tool in the Navy before that.

I build practical things for auto service operations. Tools my own coworkers actually use, designed by someone who's written estimates and worked the counter. If the tool doesn't make a real person's real job easier, I don't build it.

I'm based in Wells, Maine. I write field notes on what I'm learning. I work with shop owners and ownership groups who are curious about AI but tired of being sold to.