Picture of Me in Wired

Wired: Bomb Detection CEO Could be New Darpa Chief

The article focuses on a rumor that Regina Dugan (in the center of the picture) may be appointed the next head of DARPA. DARPA is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which has been responsible for developing all kinds of technology. They had their hands in the development of the internet, advanced unmanned aerial vehicles, etc, and were the creators of the DARPA Grand Challenge (the famed contest between robotic vehicles [wikipedia.org]). Blah blah blah...

The interesting part of the article (for me at least) is I'm in the picture that is running with the article! That picture was taken almost 10 years ago, when I (as part of a team) went to the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab to demonstrate some miniature autonomous robots.

Yup, that's me on the right there, back when I had a crew cut. I was having a bad hair decade. Remember, there was a point in my life when I had a mullet and thought that I didn't look like an idiot. It's not exactly like I have the best self-evaluation skills. I don't know what the hell I was thinking... Like my head isn't odd-shaped enough without drawing attention to it with a crew cut. All I needed was a pair of thick glasses to look exactly like a stereotypical aerospace engineer from the 50s.

This was, of course, before I discovered that it would look less ridiculous if I put an entire quart of hair gel into my hair each morning (which is what I do now).

Photo Credit: Case Western Reserve University