Welcome to The Analytical Altruist
Independent technology advisory for trades, construction, and service businesses — workflow-first evaluation, no referral incentives.
Welcome to The Analytical Altruist — independent technology advisory for trades, construction, and service businesses.
What I Do
I work with trades, construction, and service-based businesses who need a clear-eyed read on a technical problem before they commit real money to solving it. That might mean a workflow rebuilt around what your crew actually does instead of what the vendor demo assumed, a document management evaluation grounded in your real operations, or a reporting system that gives you numbers you can trust without hiring a data team.
The judgment behind that work is independent. I don’t take referral fees or reseller commissions — my recommendations are based on what actually fits your operation, not on who’s paying me to suggest it. I do work with vendors in an embedded advisory capacity, but those relationships are disclosed and don’t shape what I recommend to you. The vendors I work with don’t get a seat at the table when I’m evaluating what’s right for you.
What You’ll Find Here
This blog supports the deeper work — the guides, frameworks, and case studies where the real value lives:
Industry perspective. How technology decisions play out for contractors, field service businesses, and operations teams — including what vendors don’t tell you before you sign.
Case studies. Deep dives into projects where workflow clarity and the right technology created measurable impact. My portfolio has the full record.
Analysis. Practical takes on AI governance, software evaluation, and the gap between what tools promise and what they deliver in real operations.
Featured Work
Each of these started as a specific operational problem, not a technology in search of a use case:
From Whiteboard Chaos to One Version of Reality: A Field Service Transformation
When ABC Plumbing & Construction outgrew whiteboards and carbon-copy invoices, they faced a critical choice: which software would give their dispatcher, technicians, and office the same view of reality—without endless re-entry or vendor lock-in?
From Unsupported Chromebook to Focused Writing System
A workflow-first technology case study showing how an aging Chromebook was evaluated, rebuilt, secured, and configured around the real needs of a researcher and long-form writer.
Spatial Analysis in Action: Optimizing Service Territory for Growth
When a growing HVAC company needed to expand from 3 to 6 technicians, spatial analysis transformed gut instinct into a data-driven growth strategy—optimizing service territories, identifying underserved areas, and building confidence for a major hiring investment.
California's Food System Vulnerability: A Research Report
Research report examining California's food system resilience and the promising strategies emerging to strengthen local food security.
Free Resources
If you’d rather start working on your own problem than read about someone else’s, a few of the guides I’ve put together are free to use right now. If you run a trades or field service business, the field service software buyer’s guide covers how to evaluate platforms without getting steered by whoever’s selling the loudest. The AI readiness matrix helps you figure out whether AI actually fits a given process before you spend money on it. The full set lives on the resources page, and more get added as they’re ready.
Let’s Connect
If something here is relevant to a problem you’re facing, I’d rather hear about it directly than have you guess whether it applies — whether it’s a software decision, a document management problem, or a question about whether your operation is ready for a change.
Get in touch — or browse the portfolio first to see what this looks like in practice.
