The background
Four domains. One consistent problem.
The technology changed. The physical constraints changed. The gap between what the software promised and what the hardware could deliver — that never changed.
Asset Tracking in Hostile Environments
The US Army needed to locate abandoned heavy equipment — tanks, armored vehicles, heavy logistics assets — in hostile environments with intermittent or absent satellite connectivity. The conventional software approach assumed connectivity that didn't exist. I designed a fault-tolerant asset recovery system that assumed the network would fail, optimized for intermittent satellite and cellular windows, and delivered reliable location data in conditions where most systems simply stopped working.
Multi-million dollar equipment. Zero connectivity guarantees. No second chances.
IoT Protocol Reverse Engineering
A water authority needed drive-by IoT meter reading across millions of devices. The hardware vendor had convinced the organization that expensive third-party software was the only viable option. I reverse-engineered the hardware communication protocol, designed a lightweight custom solution, and delivered a system that read meters at 40mph from 30 feet.
Eliminated millions in licensing fees. System deployed globally.
14M Endpoint Modernization
A major utility provider was running 14 million legacy transmission devices on deprecated protocols. Data synchronization was failing at scale during grid modernization. The system served critical infrastructure — it could not go down. But it had to change. I architected a high-throughput ingestion layer that bridged the legacy hardware with a modern cloud analytics platform — legacy and new running in parallel under a strangler-fig architecture until the old system could be safely retired.
14M+ endpoints migrated. Zero downtime. Real-time grid visibility now supports predictive maintenance.
Workflow Platforms for Global Operations
Designed and delivered workflow platforms for global energy firms operating across multiple jurisdictions, regulatory environments, and operational constraints. The challenge in these environments is never purely technical — it's translating between what the field can do, what compliance requires, and what the business needs to report. That translation work is where most implementations fail.
Operational complexity at global scale. Technology that had to work in the field, not just in the demo.
The philosophy
Why independent governance matters
The hardware/software gap is where capital disappears
SaaS thinking assumes connectivity, compute, and uptime. Physical-world systems assume none of it. When a software-first advisor evaluates an industrial program, they're reading a map of a territory they've never been to. The gap between what looks good in the architecture diagram and what works on the plant floor — that gap is where $2M problems live.
The board side of the table is a different job
A CTO's job is to build and protect a technical organization. My job is to give the board an honest picture of what that organization is actually delivering — independent of the org chart, independent of the vendor relationships, and independent of the career incentives that shape every status update that travels upward. Those are different jobs. Very few people do both.
Governance gates prevent most of what I find after the fact
Most of the situations I'm brought into — failed migrations, misaligned platforms, unverified proof-of-concept assumptions — had clear intervention points before capital was committed. The problem is that nobody in the approval chain had the standing, the independence, or the physical-world context to ask the right question at the right moment. That's the governance gate. That's what I exist to provide.
The positioning
Why I'm not a consultant
The word “consultant” covers a range of things that have very little in common. It covers people who implement, people who advise, people who manage, and people who review. Those are different jobs with different incentives and different conflicts.
I do one of them. I review — independently, from the board side — and I report what I find in language the board can act on. I don't manage the implementation. I don't hire the team. I don't own the vendor relationship. I don't have a P&L inside the org I'm reviewing.
That independence is the entire value. The moment I have a stake in the outcome, I'm no longer doing this job — I'm doing a different one.
Request a Technical Risk ConversationAmundson Strategic
Weekly insights on technology governance
What boards should know about technology decisions before they cost something. Written for PE Operating Partners, board directors, and industrial CEOs — not for developers.
Read on SubstackWHAT THE WRITING COVERS
How board-approved programs go off-track without anyone lying
What pre-deal technical due diligence misses in physical-world environments
The vendor claim vs. physical reality gap — and what it costs
Governance gates that prevent the $2M problems
What boards should be asking before the next capital approval