The son of an engineering professor, Russ spent the first years of his life convinced he’d stay in the family business and become an engineer. Life had other plans. Barely a semester into engineering school in New York City, it occurred to him that his non-engineering classes in english, fiction writing and history excited him more than fluid dynamics and partial differential equations. In the end, he did get an engineering degree in Biomechanics, but his eyes had been opened.
Open eyes, though, don’t make for a career plan. After college, he tried a number of paths: working in a neurobiology laboratory pondering a career in science, teaching English in Japan, selling Macintosh computers, working at a software company. He went back to school in New York for a masters degree in business.
Right about then, the World Wide Web kicked into gear. He took several jobs at Internet-related firms and then the bottom dropped out — the Internet bubble burst. He landed on my feet at the LEGO Company of plastic brick fame. There he helped launch the LEGO Mindstorms robotics kits and played a key role in kickstarting the online LEGO Club. His name’s even on a U.S. patent for virtual LEGO bricks. After seven years and over forty trips to company headquarters in Denmark, it was time to move on. He was newly married and had a newfound passion for fiction writing.
Today he writes in the mornings and code websites the rest of the day. He currently lives in Virginia with his wife and three kids.