He began his journey in Identity while working in research at LIGO, where he and several others built federated access mechanisms for researchers to gain secure access to resources, data, and collaboration tools and helped reduce the friction involved. Was involved in the early days of defining concepts like "Virtual Organization" and "Collaborative Organization" (VO/CO), a concept heavily used in Academia and Research. He has spent time inside central IAM efforts at large R1 universities, one of the largest national NRENs and federation operators, consulting to R&E, the federal government, DoD, and has participated in numerous working groups, ISACs, and community and open source efforts. He is the weirdo in the room that actually likes SAML when seen to its fullest scale and potential.