Who am I (not in like a ‘doxing’ kind of way…but you know what I mean)

Hey there! I’ve gone by ‘Bubby’ or ‘Bubs’ for as long as my oldest niece has been around (none of your damn business how long ago that was), and when I decided to start…whatever it is this is…it felt like the only fitting name to go by.

I am a mechanical engineer, both by profession and by passion. For as long as I can remember I have loved the satisfaction of taking some appliance or anything else mechanical apart and figuring out how it does the thing that someone crafted it to do. In the time since the days of my mom coming home to a deconstructed vacuum cleaner, I earned my BSME and MSME, the latter of which with a focus in precision engineering and machine design...although I spent most of my grad school hours hiding in the machine shop makin chips :) ). In the ten(ish) years since, I’ve been fortunate to work on some unique projects with some exceptional people.

While I am wildly grateful for those opportunities (and very much enjoy my current 'day job'), I love the spirit of open source collaboration and sharing. So I decided to start trying to make an effort to share (and better document...maybe) the various projects I find myself delving into outside of the 9-to-5. My hope is to share things/info that is "useful", whether that be an easily printable model of a simple bracket you were looking for, or maybe a little technical nugget that somehow helps you later solve a design challenge of your own...I mean, what greater satisfaction can an engineer get? :)

So where does "JFS Agri" fit in to this? Well...I'll just ya the honest truth... JFS is a company that I founded, initially with the intent to pursue a rapid growth style start-up, with the traditional VC funding route, and all those inevitable riches that follow! You're probably expecting some sort of anti-climactic failure caused by reality meeting dream, but alas, instead I have an anti-climactic failure to launch caused by just some self reflection and personal prioritization :) Ultimately, those around me were supportive, and the decision was made to instead to redirect the focus of the company to building a "community-driven research and development" organization. I've benefitted and learned SO much from all of the various ways that professionals, across the spectrum of disciplines, share their work, processes, and knowledge. So while it certainly means no fat VC checks (and still very much needin those 9-5 checks), I'm much more excited about seeing what the broader community could do to take the things that I/we come up with to make them exponentially better!