About me

My career has been shaped by a continuing interest in how complex systems are designed, how their individual components interact, and how thoughtful design can improve the way people live and work.

I began my professional career in engineering and technology and later moved into software development, spending more than three decades working as a software engineer. That experience taught me to approach difficult problems as interconnected systems: understand the requirements, identify relationships, test alternatives, and develop solutions that can adapt as needs change.

Today, I bring that systems-oriented perspective to architecture and urban planning.

I am pursuing the Master of Architecture and Master in Community and Regional Planning degrees at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, with expected graduation in May 2028. Combining architecture and planning allows me to study the built environment at multiple scales, from structures and buildings to neighborhoods, transportation networks, infrastructure, and entire urban regions.

Software engineering and architecture may appear to be very different disciplines, but I see an important connection between them.

A successful software system depends on many specialized components working together. Cities operate in much the same way. Buildings, transportation, energy, water, food, communications, public spaces, governance, and social institutions are individual systems, but their performance ultimately depends on how well they work together.

This perspective has become central to my architectural and planning work.

My studies have included architectural design, structures, environmental systems, urban planning, geographic information systems, transportation, sustainability, community development, and planning research. I am particularly interested in projects that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries.

My primary research interest is arcology: the integration of architecture and urban systems into a more comprehensive approach to human settlement.

Rather than treating arcology simply as a monumental building or isolated megastructure, my research investigates it as a framework for coordinating architecture, transportation, infrastructure, energy, water, agriculture, waste management, public services, governance, and community development.

I am especially interested in the possibilities of horizontal arcology, where existing communities and new development can become parts of a larger integrated urban system rather than being replaced by a single enormous structure.

The Omaha–Lincoln corridor in Nebraska provides an important setting for exploring these ideas. Communities such as Ashland, Greenwood, and Waverly offer opportunities to examine how transportation, infrastructure, housing, environmental systems, governance, and future development might be coordinated across municipal boundaries.

My research also considers much longer time horizons. How should settlements evolve over the next 100, 500, or 1,000 years? How might increasingly autonomous infrastructure, artificial intelligence, closed-loop environmental systems, and new transportation technologies change urban form? And how might lessons developed for terrestrial cities eventually inform settlements on the Moon, Mars, and beyond?

University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Master of Architecture, Candidate
Master in Community and Regional Planning, Candidate
Expected May 2028

Bellevue University
Master of Science, Computer Information Systems
2006

University of Nebraska Omaha
Bachelor of Science, Computer Science
1989

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Bachelor of Science, Engineering Technology
1976

MiraCosta College
Associate Degree, Science and Mathematics
1973

Returning to university after a long career in technology has given me an unusual perspective on architecture and planning. I do not see the transition as leaving one profession behind for another. Instead, it is an expansion of the same fundamental interest that has guided much of my career: understanding complicated systems and finding better ways to make their parts work together.

Software taught me to think systematically. Architecture gives those systems physical form. Urban planning places them within communities, regions, institutions, and time.

My goal is to bring those disciplines together to investigate how we can design more integrated, adaptable, sustainable, and resilient places for the future.