(https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-gruman/)

I am an engineering leader that grew up in a little town nestled between farm fields in northeast Iowa, just beyond the driftless area.

A sign out on the highway billed it as the “Gateway to the Backbone.” Starting from around 7 years old I delivered newspapers door to door on a bicycle, rolling past corn fields. So much has changed since those days.

I’m proud to say that I’ve had a hand in driving some of the changes that you see out in the fields today. My career has been an amazing...

Technical people identify with the tools and the jargon of their trade. Web developers may have Ruby on Rails and Python. Farmers have their combine or pickup truck. Engineering students used to carry either an HP or a Texas Instruments calculator, and today might use MATLAB and other modeling software. The tools themselves both enable the work being done, but they also set boundaries for what can be done.

I am very much in the technical community with my own tools.

But more importantly,...