When I was a young, I wanted to be a car designer. By the age of 5, I realized that my artistic abilities were…. a bit lacking to say the least. I quickly pivoted to understanding what do people like about their cars, what do they hate about their cars, which cars are popular, etc., etc. At the ripe age of 10, I directed my dad to buy not the shameful minivan, but look, here’s a Toyota Land Cruiser (80 Series of course!) that has 3 rows of seats and can fit the entire extended family while also looking badass! SOLD!
After dabbling in the worlds of aerospace (I worked on the development of the 787 Dreamliner!) and consulting (travel and cubes!), I decided to figure out how to join the world of automotive product strategy.
One of my first jobs was in product planning for Toyota (up until then my dream job!). Working with engineering, design and manufacturing, figuring out what should be standard, what are okay to be options, what should it look like? It was bliss. I took that experience and leveraged it to go back to a specific kind of automotive consulting, essentially working as a sort of product planning mercenary. This touched on residual values (forecasting resale values and depreciation) and even product quality, sales, marketing and distribution. Now I spend most of my days helping to shape the future of mobility services and models of vehicle ownership, along with reimagining the automotive shopping journey.
I currently live in the DC Metro area with my wife and daughter.
Just a few of the cars that have shared time in the Minny garage:
- Honda S2000
- BMW 330i
- Honda Ridgeline
- Acura TL Type S
- Infiniti G35x
- Toyota FJ Cruiser
- Honda Prelude
- Subaru WRX Hatchback
- VW R32
- VW GTI
- Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland
- Toyota Tacoma TRD Sport
- Subaru BRZ
- Honda Civic Si (2 different generations!)
- Mercedes-Benz C300 4Matic
- Audi S4 Avant
- Honda Odyssey
- BMW X5
- Audi e-tron
- Chrysler Pacifica PHEV (2!)
- Polestar 2
- VW Atlas
- BMW M3 (2!)
- Genesis GV80
- BMW X5 PHEV
