The relevant detail about me is that I led thousands of high-performing Silicon Valley techies, and I coached the highest-performing athletes in Olympic Judo. I am happiest when I am volunteering.  I love serving others, helping the weak, and knowing I gave my best. I served on numerous non-profit boards.  Professionally, I directed techies to solve big problems, traded $500 million in bonds daily, and exited two M&As. I served as the CEO of a software startup, the CSO of a tech startup incubator, the director at a major Silicon Valley software company, and a researcher at a major global technology research firm.  Academically, I was an International Fellow at Seoul National University, a Research Associate at USC, and a professor at Gachon University.

HACKING

In my early years, I self-taught computer programming by joining a local computer hacking group in San Fernando Valley. I wrote COBOL programs on IBM mainframes by day and self-taught hacking by night. I wrote computer tools to solve problems including a winning version in The Rockwell International Programming Contest. 

MATH

Math and computers were easy.  I worked as an algorithm trader, commonly known as a quant jock, at a mortgage bank in Pasadena. I wrote a black box algorithm to forecast the future mortgage backed securites price movements.  I traded $500 million in bonds each day.  The traders were super-competitive bunch.  And the trades were always done in high-pressure, ultra-accuracy, and high-speed environment.  Often I won which I enjoyed tremendously. The company became the largest mortgage bank in the country, and was sold for $4 Billion.  

SILICON VALLEY

One of my proudest moments as a computer worker was at PeopleSoft, a small company that grew into the largest ERP company in the country.  It started as a cool and up-and-coming Silicon Valley Startup.  I led a group of kick-ass geek commandos who developed a global enterprise resource planning upgrade path simply known as the Y2K fix. I believed new hires were the measuring stick of a startup, and the culture and vibe they created mattered.  The Professional Development Program was created to attract and retain the highest-performing university hires.  PS had the fortune of being near two of the top universities in the country: the University of California and Stanford.  We recruited the top 10 computer science students from the top 10 universities and turned them into techie Rambos. The Rambos were trained in all manners of the tech business. The computer science majors were deeply trained in software, hardware, networks and databases.  In addition, they were able to discuss corporate governance with the board, visions with the CEOs, hard numbers with the CFOs, tech facts with CTOs, and deep code dive while configuring servers and routers. The consulting group grew from nothing to 3,000. The company was valued at $40 billion. It was not easy herding the cats as they were. After all, these were hyper-competitive, top-1% who were born to solve really big problems.  Their first instinct was to leave the company and start their own startup.

IN-HOUSE STARTUP INCUBATOR

I devised a way to give them meaning and purpose without leaving the company. I started an in-house startup incubator to fund 21st-century new technology initiatives open to all employees. It provided a good entrepreneurial environment.  It provided a co-working space and laser-focused advisements. More interestingly, we had data. Millions, and billions, and Googleplex amounts of redacted data accumulated from consulting Fortune 500 global companies. And we knew how to squeeze blood out of data turnips. The office oversaw over 1,000 research teams investigating all disciplines of technology. A total of $25 million was granted. An army of research coordinators, program managers, and project managers to support the research teams were hired. The incubator itself could have been a $25 million R&D center spin-off. One of the ideas that was born is now a $50 Billion publicly traded company. PeopleSoft was voted "Top 10 best companies to work for” by Fortune magazine before being sold for the largest acquisition sum at that time. 

NON-PROFIT STARTUP INCUBATOR

After moving to Irvine, to ease the pain of others launching a startup, I co-founded PeopleSpace, a non-profit incubator in Irvine, to offer 1) co-working space, 2) entrepreneur education, and 3) startup incubation. PeopleSpace was awarded the Entrepreneur of the Year award by the Irvine Chamber of Commerce.  I met good people, and everything was better together.  It was the happiest time of my life.

JUDO

I am a Judo black belt.  My Judo certifications include USA Olympic/USA Judo international coach & referee, and numerous Judo awards.  I was  the Seoul National University Judo team member.  I served on the USA Judo Foundation board. I also founded the Irvine Judo Club where I taught Judo because I wanted the community to be strong physically and mentally yet be compassionate and capable of contributing to the world. I placed the students' personal development ahead of everything else.

COMPUTER IN JUDO

I combined my love of Judo and computers to create JudoCare, a computer vision system used in major NGBs and elite national and international point tournaments in continents of Asia, Europe, N.America, S.America, Africa, and Australia.  JudoCARE was a video arbitration tool to help make sure the right player got the win. It tracked and analyzed the judo player's movements autonomously. JudoCARE was among the world's largest providers of video analytics systems used in referee arbitration in the sport of Judo.

VOLUNTEER

I love volunteering.  I made so many good friends and made wonderful memories through volunteering. Hit me up if you have worthy volunteering projects!!!  I always make time.  These are some of the volunteer activities I enjoyed doing. 

US Olympic committee / USA Judo non-profit Foundation board member

Irvine Judo Club non-profit  Foundation board member

High School, Inc. non-profit  Foundation board member

PeopleSpace, Inc. non-profit  Foundation board member

The US President's Volunteer Service Award organizer

The US Congressional Special Recognition Recipient

American Statistical Association DataFest mentor

The Boyscouts of America Troop committee chair

Boy & Girls Club volunteer judo coach

Crystal Cove Beach Cleanup volunteer

Mexico low-income house building volunteer

Holiday Gift Wrapping for Marine Corps volunteer

Meals on Wheels volunteer 

NASA Space Apps Challenge judge

US National Guard homeless cold shelter volunteer 

National Charity League volunteer DBA 

Onnuri Young Adults group mentor

Pleasanton Science Fair judge

Santa Ana Food Bank volunteer

Santa Ana Valley High School computer club mentor

Seoul National University venture capital club mentor

Youngnak education department director

UC Irvine Mirage School of Business mentor

USC Marshall School of Business mentor

USS Midway Volunteer Officer of the Watch

ACM professional