About

The main points…

Udacity Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree, October 2017
Master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Oklahoma, May 2014
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, University of Oklahoma, December 2001
15 years experience as an electronics engineer and computer scientist
Unbridled, contagious enthusiasm

People are talking…

I must say, it’s rather rare to discover such an entertaining piece about such a complicated subject!
- Udacity Senior Technical Writer Christopher Watkins, referring to my EKF project blog post

Excellent description and informative writeup, at a practical and understandable level!
- A fellow Nanodegree student in response to my Traffic Sign Classifier project blog post

You got the trusty Jeremy.
- a teammate upon finding I’d been recruited for the Didi Challenge

Your blog post really saved me on Project 4.

Your article is excellent. I like your focus on visually seeing the data before doing anything with it.
- classmate referring to my Project 2 write-up

Your articles are amazing btw!
- a classmate’s Term 1 review, linking to my Project 2 write-up

G’day Jeremy, I just read your blog on Medium about P1, and loved the video! … Nice work!

I would like to thank you to make description of your work available for other students. It’s the great effort which you have applied for your P2 and you have done a fabulous job by providing its information on your site. It’s really helpful for students like me who would like to learn and understand more from other students who are doing great work in this field.

Also i must let you know Jeremy that i love reading your blogs and approach about these projects. I always find your explanation easy to follow! Thanks for always detailing things out!

I like your enthusiasm a lot!
- classmate reaction to my video summary of Project 4

Aww, that’s super cool! Now, you have inspired me to play with my video some more. :)
- classmate reaction to my video summary of Project 4

AWEEEESOME!
- classmate reaction to my video summary of Project 4

Hey Jeremy, Thank you so much for posting about your experience on P3.

The story so far…

Sure, you can call me a late bloomer (if it makes you feel better), but there have certainly been later bloomers who’ve gone on to accomplish great things. You wouldn’t be incorrect, though - it took me almost half of a career to find my true calling.

Now, that’s not to say I didn’t have goals up to this point. In my twenties I thought I might one day play drums in a famous rock band (hell, semi-famous would have sufficed), and a stable career with the Air Force as an electronics engineer was a great way to bankroll it. When I turned thirty, though, I guess a switch in my brain was flipped and suddenly the idea of spending my days mostly cooped up in a van eating truck stop cuisine with a number of other individuals, each with his or her own idea of what denotes an acceptable level of personal hygeine, became just a little unappealing.

I needed something new to focus my energy on, so I went back to school to get a master’s degree - partly because my employer generously offered to pay for it, but mostly because I needed the challenge - a chance to prove to myself that I could still do hard things. And I rocked it. I graduated with a 4.0 GPA, a kickass robot, and a conference paper to my name.

It was while working on my thesis that I discovered my affinity for software development. Software wasn’t new to me, by any means, but modern languages and tools were. The creativity and immediacy of it thrilled me, and I thoroughly enjoyed coding applications for a few years while fulfilling a service contract for the master’s degree.

I’ve now put fifteen years in with the federal goverment, and I can’t help but feel that there must be something more for me out there. I found myself wondering aloud how possible it would be to break into the autonomous vehicle industry - working on the bleeding edge of technology with a brilliant team just as excited as I am about ushering in the next great revolution in mobility. Right about that time Udacity announced its Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree.

And that’s where this blog begins…