About Me

As a young child I loved automobiles more than anything. I had hundreds of toy Matchbox cars, read all of the car magazines, and began designing cars at the age of 13. I had no idea I’d actually been born in the new digital age, nor that the automobiles I loved would impact the planet’s environment so negatively. Fast forward to 1986, I graduated college as an automotive designer and began my first job; working for General Motors Design.

While in high school in Boulder Colorado, I bought a Vespa scooter, since my first car had been so unreliable and expensive. My Vespa could take me anywhere in Boulder, but was unpleasant to ride in bad weather and could not carry much cargo. I wondered why there was such a large gap in available vehicles between my simple Vespa and a small automobile? This interest stayed with me, and led me to leave my job at General Motors after only one year.

Nearly all of my work between 1987 and 1997 was focused on creating the first Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV), which is similar to a golf cart designed for street use. My NEV company fell into the hands of new owners (now branded GEM car), but this allowed me to now focus on how to redesign America's transportation system to better incorporate smaller vehicles for local travel. For the next 25 years, I worked in a highly multi-disciplinary manner, seeking to work with as many different professionals in the mobility space as possible to best understand the larger mobility ecosystem. This included both small and large companies, government and advocacy agencies, as well as working in mobility design education and co-creation.

In 2018, I moved to Santa Fe New Mexico, a beautiful and artistic small city, which happens to be the oldest city in the United States (over 400 years old). I rented a small house near family. I sold my automobile and began traveling around by foot, Segway, ebike, as well as riding public transit and using Uber or Lyft when needed. Inside my house I had a long interior wall where he began organizing all he had learned on my 35-year journey to create a smart mobility future. I began writing my book Near to Far.

The Covid-19 pandemic spread across Earth not long after I arrived in Santa Fe. While the pandemic was sadly a major tragedy for so many, I saw a silver lining to it; hundreds of millions of people around the world would now begin accessing their world virtually, and not need to physically travel as often, which is better for the environment.