About Marvin

I didn’t have a single “aha” moment that kicked everything off — I just grew up with this irresistible urge to take things apart to see how they actually worked. By the time I was nine, I was already programming on 8086-based machines like the IBM PC/XT — back when memory was counted in kilobytes and nothing functioned unless you made it function. That early exposure to low-level systems didn’t just teach me how to code — it shaped the way I still think: performance matters, timing matters, and abstractions you can’t reason about are basically fiction.

That mindset carried me through college at Gallaudet University, where I earned my Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. While I was there, I interned at both Duke University and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, getting hands-on experience with real systems where precision and reliability weren’t optional. Those experiences reinforced something that still guides my work today: software should be about feedback, consequences, and trust — not just features.

Professionally, I’ve worked in the video game industry, contributing to real-time engines and simulation systems at studios like Bethesda Softworks and Rainbow Studios. But my passion has always extended beyond code. In the real world, I’m into drag racing and hands-on car building — I’ve torn down engines, wrestled transmissions, and raced at places like Speedworld (before it closed) — learning firsthand the difference between theoretical performance and what actually hooks up when the lights drop.

Sim racing became the natural intersection of all these worlds. I wanted a simulation experience that didn’t just look right, but felt right — especially through force feedback. When the tools that existed fell short, I built my own. That’s how MAIRA began: as a personal project to improve wheel feel, which quickly evolved into a community-driven app focused on meaningful feedback instead of gimmicks.

I still bring that same hands-on, iterative mindset to everything I do — whether I’m designing hardware parts with my 3D printer or tuning feedback behavior in software. If something doesn’t exist — or isn’t quite right — I’d rather design it, build it, and iterate until it is.

These days I balance engineering, racing, and family life as a husband, father of three, dog owner, and co-owner of a SaaS software business. Whether I’m writing code, modeling parts, soldering electronics, or turning wrenches in the garage, the goal stays the same: build systems that feel honest, responsive, and rewarding to use. MAIRA is simply the most visible expression of that philosophy — and probably not the last.