Builder · Advisor · Educator
I work where ideas meet reality.
My career spent around the world has taken me from research and emerging technology to operating industries, startup ecosystems, classrooms and global innovation programs—all connected by a desire to make ambitious ideas useful.
About Carl
A career spent crossing boundaries.
I am a product and innovation leader, commercialization advisor, company builder, mentor and educator.
For more than three decades, I have worked between technical possibility and practical application—helping researchers, founders, executives and operating teams understand what an idea could become and what it will take to get there.
That work has crossed data science, natural resources, environmental, health & safety, advanced manufacturing, climate adaption & resilience, synthetic biology, industrial technology, medical device innovation, water & food insecurity, supply-chain resilience and the machine learning evolution into intelligence.
The industries change, but the central questions remain: What problem are we solving? Who needs it? What evidence matters? And what must happen for adoption to become real?
A working perspective
Experience across different rooms and roles.
Industry
Product, innovation and commercialization work with organizations including Microsoft, Anglo American, Walt Disney Company, Hexagon and technology companies serving complex operating environments.
Research
More than ten years associated with the Colorado School of Mines, connecting research, earth sciences, entrepreneurship and emerging technology with the realities of industry adoption.
Ventures
Building, advising and mentoring early-stage companies, with lessons from ventures that worked, changed direction or did not succeed but leveraged iteration to fail early and often on the path to breakthroughs and global impact.
Global Innovation
Work across cultures and industries through XPRIZE moonshots, international programs, leadership workshops and professional education.
Public Service
Contributing technical and industry perspective in settings including testimony before a United States House subcommittee.
Learning
Designing courses, lectures and workshops that help people develop judgment and make practical innovation decisions.
What experience teaches
The real work includes the course corrections.
Innovation stories are often cleaned up after the fact. The real work is messier.
Technologies change. Customers hesitate. Partnerships fail. Regulations move. Funding takes longer than expected. Sometimes the original idea is wrong.
I believe those realities should be discussed openly. Good judgment grows from examining the hard decisions, missed assumptions and course corrections alongside the successes.
10× and the next experiment
Think ambitiously. Follow the evidence.
Moonshot thinking reinforced the value of asking questions large enough to change the frame.
The strongest ideas connect a compelling possibility with disciplined experiments, honest evidence and a practical understanding of the people who must ultimately use the result.
That is how I approach the work: keep the ambition in view, test the assumptions and make the next decision clearer.
Current work
Still building. Still teaching. Still learning.
Today, I work with researchers, founders, companies, universities and industry leaders on commercialization, venture development and learning programs.
I am especially interested in breakthrough science, advanced manufacturing, industrial resilience, the future of critical minerals resources and the decisions organizations face as technology moves faster than their ability to absorb it.