About Me

I founded Terra Segura International, a nonprofit technology company that pioneered market-oriented solutions for landmine removal and organized the team that in 2006 created Advanced Earth Technologies, which developed a robot for use against roadside bombs. I was the founding Director of the TransBorder Institute at the University of San Diego, where I also taught political science. My legal practice has been limited to pro-bono legal work. I consulted to the U.S. Attorney for Southern District of California in the mid-90s directing an analysis of the costs of undocumented aliens in the federal criminal justice system, and in the '70s practiced as an architect in Oregon, where I earned informal recognition for engineering quality and innovation in passive solar architecture.

My Harvard Law studies emphasized international law, international contracts, and negotiation; at the University of California, San Diego, I won fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the Tinker Foundation, and the University of California MEXUS Consortium. My undergraduate work at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, included heavy doses of economics and physics, and I won a fellowship from the Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Foundation for research in India. My background has given me broad world experience and numerous business and government contacts around the world.

I have a daughter, Victoria, 14, and in my spare time I develop projects associated with public health and public safety, such as Neighbors Together (pandemic flu), Piclopedia (appropriate technology), and Revisioning Peace Action (peace studies and programs). The following list of my websites is not comprehensive, but it does provide access to most of my current work.

Terra Segura International

Originally set up as a landmine-clearing nonprofit technology organization, it is broadening to include wider conceptions of public health, safety and security.

Advanced Earth Technologies

A spin-off of Terra Segura, AET was an investor-owned tech company developing robots for use against roadside bombs in Iraq, Afghanistan, and here in the U.S.

International Resources Security Group

A nonprofit security company to providing protection, secure communications, and medevac to humanitarian aid workers in Afghanistan. (64 have been murdered by the Taliban, 35 in the last year.) Scheduled to begin operations in late summer, 2009.

Piclopedia

Piclopedia is an open-source project that "translates" designs and plans for tools and devices into plans that anyone in the world can read and build from irrespective of the language they speak or read.

Neighbors Together

This is a way of helping neighborhoods prepare for major disasters, such as pandemic flu, using "civil defense"-style organizational models and techniques.

Revisioning Peace Action

This is an open-source project compiling, developing and working out ideas and plans for peace-oriented action projects.

Brazil-US Green Technology Trade Association

This is an association that brings together business, research organizations and government officials to promote and develop sustainable business, trade and policy.

Ventless Combustion and Energy

A startup company with which I consult. It is developing carbon-negative ways of turning biomass into transportation fuels and electricity.