If you want the bullet-point version of my professional experience, click here.
In high school I was in the boy scouts, wrestled varsity and earned a 4.0 in my junior year. I worked continuously during this time, even before I was legally allowed to be employed.
I chose to study economics because I wanted to study the humanities while also being employable after I graduated. My favorite course in the curriculum was econometrics because it opened up the possibilities of multi-variate statistical analysis. I completed my thesis under Professor Sofia Berto Villas-Boas testing the empirical hypothesis of collusion in the vertically-integrated agricultural market for eggs.
Through a connection at UC Berkeley, I was offered a research fellowship at ICRISAT in Hyderabad, India. I worked with a small team studying the effect of climate change on the geography of rural villages. I produced a research report measuring the impact of rainfall and other climate variables on village-level GDP.
After returning from India, I took the opportunity to travel further and taught English for a year in Cheongju, South Korea.
Upon returning to the Bay Area, I took up an internship at Banyan Water, a water-efficiency start-up then in the process of acquiring a large irrigation manufacturer in the sunbelt region of the US. For my part, I studied the acquisition’s financial statements and also produced a price index forecasting increases in water prices in the relevant region.
My interest in energy-efficiency led to my first full time job as an energy analyst at Advanced Home Energy (AHE). There, I developed my knowledge of building science and software design.
I applied this knowledge to my role as a technical sales professional. In this role I learned many valuable lessons in how I work well with customers. First, I make sure I understand the products and services at a very deep level; in my case, competence leads to confidence. I also learned how to communicate technical subjects to a non-technical audience. My ability to translate customers’ needs into a comprehensive workscope allowed me to charge above-market prices for quality work.
While I was meeting my sales quota, I developed and maintained Switcher, an Excel application powered by Visual Basic that analyzed a building’s energy use and produced reports and contracts. Within a year of my joining AHE, Switcher had become the software backbone connecting sales, install and administrative departments. It remained so throughout my tenure and was even leased to other companies in the area.
In my final year at AHE, I combined my software expertise with my economic analysis skills. At the customer level, I regressed the real-world data coming in from timesheets and Quickbooks on the cost predictions produced by Switcher. This allowed us to measure our margins across a variety of products and services.
With encouragement and support from my wife, I returned to school to earn my MS in statistics. I chose statistics based on a combination of my experience with econometrics, the ubiquity of data in the workplace and a deep curiosity about the subject matter. In between my undergraduate and graduate education I even wrote a small booklet on the visual interpretation of statistical concepts.
The highlights of my master’s program included my intellectual conversion to Bayesian statistics and my learning multi-level regression modeling techniques using the Stan ecosystem. Under the guidance of Associate Professor Ayona Chatterjee, I completed my thesis project using a Bayesian multi-level model to predict the outcome of the World Series, which I presented at the Joint Statistical Meetings. I was also awarded the Statistics Department Scholarship in my second year.
In 2015 I moved to Davis and joined Greiner Heating and Air to start their energy efficiency department. For me, this was an opportunity to lead in the development of a number of new product offerings for customers who were interested in upgrading their homes.
Launching a new department in an existing institution requires selling to internal and external customers alike. In order to earn my colleagues buy-in, I had to show that what I was offering worked for everyone.
On the engineering front, I had to convince the installation teams that more energy-efficient homes perform better with lower-capacity HVAC systems; ie. bigger is not better. In order to prove this point, I spent two years collecting data and analyzing the performance of air conditioners during heat waves.
I worked with our sales manager on setting product pricing for complementary product offerings. Together, we were able to persuade the sales team that we could double the prices of our energy-efficiency products without giving up market share. We were successful in this venture and my years at Greiner were the highest revenue/most profitable in the company’s 30 year history.
For outside customers, I worked with our marketing manager to measure the success of various campaigns for new products. With the support of the CEO, we also performed the first ever A/B testing email marketing campaign.
I’ve had the opportunity to work with a lot of talented people over my career. Working with others has given me the opportunity to understand my strengths, weaknesses and general disposition regarding work.
First, my weaknesses. This question is open to self-serving bias as weaknesses and mistakes are often perceived as bad luck. So I’ll re-frame this and ask, “If I could go back in time 10 years, what advice would I give my former self?”
Second, my strengths. I’ve learned that I’m a resourceful self-starter/self-learner. I have grit, or stick-to-it-ed-ness, in solving real-world problems. I believe this is related to my cognitive and emotional awareness that my work impacts other people.
My previous boss called me a mensch, which is Yiddish for a person of integrity and honor. This trait is reflected in my Big 5 personality profile which shows that my strongest traits are in trust and self-discipline. My Meyers-Briggs personality type is an INFJ-T, meaning that I’m diplomatic and that my core strategy is constant improvement. Kaizen, amen.