About Jim
I've spent a lifetime learning by making things.
The things changed. Software, companies, communities, teams, and now books and videos. The curiosity did not.
1986
Learning by making
I started Mustang Software from a bedroom in Bakersfield with about $5,000 and no formal programming background. I taught myself Turbo Pascal, wrote Wildcat! BBS, built a team around it, and eventually took the company public on NASDAQ. When the browser erased the BBS market, we had to learn, change, and build again.
After Mustang
Reinvention
I stepped into turnaround work, built another software company, helped founders, and led a large application development team. Those years taught me that titles matter less than staying useful when the facts change.
Microsoft
Two chapters
I joined Azure Logic Apps while it was still in Public Preview. I helped guide it to general availability and led a team that thought beyond one product. Their work helped form Azure Integration Services. Years later, I returned to Microsoft to work on Visual Studio and Visual Studio Subscriptions before retiring in July 2026.
BestHour
Following fitness somewhere unexpected
I started lifting as a teenager and kept training through the long Mustang years. Debbie and I later opened two kickboxing studios. She became the heart of the member experience, and together we built a community people called the Best Hour of their day. The business was eventually acquired.
The life around the work
Faith and family are not footnotes to my working life. Debbie and I have been married since 1987. We are parents, grandparents, and willing staff to a Labradoodle named Coco. Fitness has been a constant since I was about 14. All of it shapes what I notice and what I decide to make.
Back at the keyboard
I stopped serious hands-on coding around 2001. AI tools pulled me back. I am learning again, building again, and enjoying the freedom to follow an idea without needing to know where it leads.
See what I'm playing with →