Absolute Player Bios

I am a 38-year old electrical engineer and Army Reserve officer, married with 4 children. As a civilian, I design active imaging (laser and radar) remote sensing systems. As a civil affairs officer, I manage the effect of civilians on combat operations (and, to the extent possible, the effect of combat operations on civilians).

I learned chess as a child, and followed the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match over the radio in Lohja, Finland. In keeping with my lifelong attraction to gambits, underdogs, the Red Sox, and other lost causes, I was rooting for the defending champion.

My first experiences with correspondence chess came a few years later, in 1975, at the Kaivopuisto chess park in Helsinki. There I met correspondence players who would bring their CC recorders with them to the park, to discuss their ongoing games with anyone willing to offer an opinion. Within a year I too was playing CC with my friends, albeit eschewing consultation.

I have not been an active OTB player since high school, but I have continuously maintained my interest in computer chess programming, from my very first RCA COSMAC 1802-based kit computer through assembly coding for 6502/6809 series processors to my undergraduate engineering project building a microcoded chess-playing processor from bit-slice ALUs.

Over the years I have served Kaissa in various volunteer capacities, from coaching our local middle-school chess club to maintaining ratings for the WCCF and serving on the rules committee of the ICCF, but my longest-standing service has been as a team captain in numerous events for the ICCF-US and ASPCC, including our simultaneous 5-team entry in the 1998 USCF team tournament.