About

Hi, I'm William. I'm an engineer, passionate about leveraging my deep understanding of how the world works with my design sense to make a serious improvement on the lives of millions of people through a startup.

Accomplishments

There are a couple of accomplishments that come to mind. Primarily, my Aerospace Engineering degree, which was no walk in the park, or my Eagle Scout rank starting me on the path to leadership. Another is my pilot's license, which was really more dedication and love of flying than anything, though people seem to be disproportionately impressed by it. However, the largest and most complicated project I've done and the most relevant has to be that I built a tech startup's technology from the ground up, working on a large optimization simulation software as well.

The startup I joined started out as a consulting company and I was one of the first few employees. I started by doing the technical side of consulting (basically fancy excel) but quickly built them a database and the company website and from there more analytics tools. When the pandemic came and no one would pay for consultants anymore we leaned hard on this base. I expanded both the software suite and our programming team and we built a full-on dashboarding and analytics software to sell to our clients so they could get a handle on the rather unkempt data they were struggling to make sense of.

With this, we had to make a particular kind of analytics tool which optimized a certain one of their processes that was taking the most time. Now this problem was a complicated one - thoroughly NP-hard. We worked with a world-class researcher in the field and received an NSF grant, all to make a greater than 10% improvement in outcomes for our clients. To do this we used mixed integer-linear programming as our primary method. It's now being integrated with the software we sell and I expect it to do very well.

Free Time

In my free time, the first order of business is that I take care of my health, going to the gym regularly and making sure to eat right. Contrary to most people, I do in fact enjoy programming in my spare time, and spend plenty of time learning about elegant algorithms and new tools. I tend to gravitate towards things that are pushing the boundaries of technology and when I see there's a better way to do things I don't look back. This is why I enjoy watching YouTube videos that teach me details on all kinds of different subjects. I like getting a breadth of knowledge and live for those times where I discover something new that changes how I think. My friends and I find it fun to have talks where we challenge each other's opinions, ideas and convictions thereby learning to be open to new theories and ideas. In addition, my friends and I play board games that challenge us through strategic thinking or interpersonal dynamics, with intricate german-style board games and hidden role games. I also travel, which continues to expand my perspective of the world. Finally, to satisfy that bit of me that just wants to relax and introspect, I sing in a couple of choirs.

Upbringing

My upbringing brought me into contact with people from all walks of life, so I was able to get a good breadth of perspectives. From rich to poor, free to trapped, happy to depressed, I've seen how the views a person has on life make a big difference in how they live it and by consequence what happens to them.

There were a couple of things that showed me there are certain systems that are ripe for improvement. In high school, I was fortunate enough to study in Mexico for a semester and it showed me that I didn't have to sacrifice all my time studying in order to get good grades. I was able to learn even better without running the rat race. Thus, I changed my perspective on what I was there for and with the approach I took with the rest of my schooling. I actually got an education, something I cannot say for everyone I've met (even at the highest levels). I have since been on the lookout for other life-changing mind-shifts and have found a few.

I wanted to get a good breadth of world knowledge, so when I was able to choose a subject to study in school I chose aerospace engineering. It covers everything including chemistry, physics, materials, space, quantum mechanics, some biology even, but in particular it also has an explicit focus on how to turn a product into a business, how to make it fit the market, and how to work with the political system. The school I chose also put an extra focus on these last elements. These are pieces that I think are crucial to making something in the real world and making it actually work, making it be successful.