Meet the Nerds

The Ranch has always provided a safe haven for creative expression, collaboration, risk-taking, and earnest, hard work. That’s a trend I’m dedicated to continuing.

From IT support out of college to Director of Project Strategy at the Ranch, to now becoming General Manager. Since joining BNR in 2015, Dan managed product development efforts for and built relationships with, startup entrepreneurs with a dream to leaders at Fortune 100 companies looking for sustainable partnerships with an earnest and caring technology firm.

Core to Dan’s motivations is the understanding that technology revolves around people: their lives, their emotions, their stories, and the context in which they derive meaning in the world. Through this lens is the path with which he walks alongside the other Nerds to do great work for our clients.

Prior to Big Nerd Ranch, Dan spent 10 years at Emory University in various technology-related roles, ending up in product management building applications for health sciences principal investigators.

In his personal life, Dan and his wife spend time laughing with their young son and laughing (lovingly) at their dog. He is a music nut, having played in jazz groups and rock bands in his younger days, loves the Coen Brothers, and is happy if he makes bogey on a par 3

I focus on designing the best human-technology experiences using agile and lean design practices.

Interestingly, Angie has a BA in cultural anthropology, which is great prep for a career in user experience—no, really. As she points out, the practice of understanding the cultural and technical norms of groups, along with empathizing with their needs, is ideal for user-centered design. At BNR, Angie enjoys leading a team of user experience and interface designers. Together they design brilliant mobile and web products that go from “visionary” to “market advantage.” She is also a gifted BNR teacher, instructing others to design for mobile and emerging technology.
All told, Angie has over 15 years of experience designing a wide array of user experiences with companies like Coca Cola, Chick-fil-A, Nationwide, Dragon Army and more. Throughout her career, she has been “devoted to design solutions that meet the unique needs of the user while never neglecting core design principles.”
Passionate about sharing her knowledge, Angie has had many speaking engagements at conferences like QCon SF, SXSW, ConnectJS, IxDA, Amex, and Ladies that UX. Some of her topics have been “Animating the UI,” “Design Guidelines for Conversational Interfaces” and “The Maker Movement.”

Angie always wanted to become a French philosopher when she grew up and has an ongoing love of Paris. When she’s not daydreaming about her next visit to the city of lights, she might be running, biking, or indulging her love of ‘80s John Hughes movies.

I am honored to guide a training program with a team of experts who also build brilliant digital products together every day.

Most recently, Eric was a manager in Deloitte Consulting’s Organization Transformation practice, where he led training and change management programs supporting major technology transformations for public and private sector clients. He also contributed to thought leadership on the Future of Work. Eric has a passion for preparing people for what’s ahead by equipping them with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed. He is excited to lead the charge of leveraging Big Nerd Ranch’s strong reputation to build the best training program available to engineers and designers.
Eric loves spending time with his family: wife, two growing daughters, and one pup. He enjoys playing the guitar, hiking in the outdoors and playing Ultimate Frisbee.

I lead the sales team at BNR and oversee their portfolio of business across existing and new customers.

I am honored to serve the Project Strategy team at BNR as we enable our Nerds to deliver excellent solutions that make the world better.

Navigating organizational change and seizing opportunities have been themes of James’ career since he began working part-time at Apple in 2006. While James completed his matriculation at Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business, he yearned to take on more responsibility and indulge his creativity while working for Apple. Following the launch of the iPhone, Apple’s growth yielded opportunities for James to do both: he became an Acting Store Manager as well as honed his eye for photography over the next 6 years.

As James became enamored by photography and team leadership, he joined pre-IPO startup Square. Within a year at Square, James was managing the Customer Support team and leading the charge to introduce phone support as an offering for Square’s customers. Square also introduced James to full-stack product development where he joined collections of cross-functional teams working together to produce revolutionary commerce tools in Square’s San Francisco headquarters.

James then dove deeper into product development at a Mattel-acquired startup in San Francisco by donning such hats as Product Owner, Scrum Master, and IT Operations (sometimes all at once.) James’ growing family would necessitate a return to his hometown of Atlanta where he found the job description for Project Strategist at Big Nerd Ranch: a combination of Project Manager and Scrum Master.

James jumped at the opportunity to join a BNR following his tenure in the SF Bay Area in March of 2018.