James Moran Des Moines, Iowa

Engineer. Analyst. Builder. Human.

Engineer turned analyst turned AI builder. Four roles, one pattern, no dropped balls.

Hiring, or building something interesting? Email me with opportunities

Engineer first

An engineering degree and seven years turning molten aluminum into precision sheet taught me process. Work to understand the system. Find the right fix for the situation. Measure, iterate, and build a process so that the fix holds without you. The material changed, but the approach never did.

Years on the plant floor
7
Saved per month, one defect cut from about 30% to about zero
$200K+
Years the problem-flagging system I built stayed in use
10+
The exit of the hot mill: two fresh aluminum coils on a cradle under the yellow overhead crane
The hot mill exit, coils fresh off the line
James grinning in a field in Iowa, a painted school bus and a tarp shelter behind him
Iowa, the first summer back

The leap

In 2022 I left the known engineering path. I took most of a year to explore: I traveled, followed my curiosities, went deeper into data analytics, and ended up moving home, close to family.

It was a risk and I was uncertain about most of it. But I was certain about one thing: some balls you do not put down for a safe career. People and exploration stayed in my pattern.

Data in service of health

I joined a young, scrappy pharma-marketing startup and juggled whatever it needed: client service, ad operations, then analytics, building the process at each stop.

We grew it into a strong company, and Real Chemistry, a major healthcare marketing firm, acquired it. I was a big part of a company that helps real people get real help. People with rare diseases got diagnoses and effective treatment. I'm proud of that.

Hire number
15
Media data sources unified
~20
Annual media programs measured
eight figures
The startup team packed into one selfie in matching shirts and mouse ears, a wall of stormtroopers behind them. James is near the top left, in Minnie ears.
The whole company, first on-site

The AI era

Today I am fixated on AI, and I build with it every day. At work I rebuilt how my team does analytics so an AI agent handles a large amount of tasks: checking data, drafting reports, keeping the team's knowledge current (all inside guardrails that keep everything safe and compliant). Now other teams are running their own version of it.

At home, the same patterns run through my life. Some examples are next.

The analytics workspace, three planes Data plane: about twenty media sources flow into bronze, silver, and gold tables in Snowflake, with reference lists feeding gold. Knowledge plane: a plain-text data knowledge bundle and LLM-maintained brand wikis. Agent plane: an AI agent runs skills for QA and reporting under rules, a compliance hook, and a permission sandbox, reading the data and the knowledge and delivering checked tables, reports, and answers that analysts also read. DATA media vendors ~20 sources BRONZE as delivered SILVER standardized GOLD reporting-ready reference lists: target · prescriber · field KNOWLEDGE data knowledge bundle 7 domains · shared metrics · conventions plain text, typed, indexed, logged brand wikis LLM-maintained from readouts, decks, and meeting transcripts AGENT AI AGENT works from the same files 11 skills QA suites · report rituals wiki ingest · deck scrub guardrails rules · compliance hook permission sandbox checked tables · reports and decks · answers and the analysts read the same library, in plain language
The AI work system I built

All four, one pattern.

Rolfe Legends 2 title screen: a red barn, a windmill, geese on a farm road, and a twister on the horizon

Things I've built

Rolfe Legends: a game series for my nephews

It began as a birthday gift: a card game starring my nephew, his family, and their farm. He and his brother beat it too quickly, so I made a sequel: a roguelike deck-builder that is much harder. You can play it here.

Now the boys design the games with me. They invent the ideas, the worlds, and the bosses; I direct the AI agents that code, paint, and test them. The fourth went from an afternoon idea to playable that night.

3 heroes (one hidden!) · 3 acts · 40+ cards · 25+ enemies · 1,390 automated tests · original art and music

Open it full screen

The rest of the series: Rolfe Legends · World of Weirdos · Attack of the Cousins

Cool Club Connections, a word-grouping game built from ten years of book club reading
Cool Club Connections

A book club, ten years in

Ten years ago I started a book club. It still meets every week, 180+ books deep. I build the things that run it: a weekly voting system with a dashboard to pick the next read, and a connections game spun from our entire reading history.

Play the connections game

An AI second brain

I built myself a vault of notes and tools, plus an AI agent orchestrator, running my actual life: projects, knowledge, journal, people. It keeps me organized and the AI agent deals with the administrative overhead. Everything is captured, cross-linked, searchable, backed up, and built to grow for decades.

The second brain, three columns Knowledge: a reference wiki, one file per person, one journal file per day, and a media folder of songs, images, and podcasts. Execution: a mission statement, projects linked to its principles, tasks with hatch dates, and a weekly review that produces a scorecard and a podcast. Agent: an AI agent with skills and hooks, reading Drive, Gmail, and Calendar just in time, reading and writing both columns. All plain markdown, git-backed. KNOWLEDGE EXECUTION AGENT reference wiki health · finances · career · tools people one file per person journal one file per day media songs · images · podcasts MISSION four roles, the principles projects each linked to a principle tasks · incubator next actions, hatch dates WEEKLY REVIEW scorecard + podcast, Sundays AI AGENT works from the same files skills + hooks review · audit · lint · capture · backup Drive · Gmail · Calendar read just in time plain markdown · git-backed · one folder, built for decades captured, cross-linked, and queryable by a person or an agent
My 2nd Brain (it named itself Hugo)

Beyond work

I commit deeply, and I stay for years.

  • Juggling. Club president at Iowa State for three years. St. Louis Jugglefest club-passing champion, 2018. The juggling metaphor is literal.
  • Brazilian jiu-jitsu. 10+ years. Tournament gold, 2021.
  • Books. Self-improvement, sci-fi, and fantasy addict. Plus a book club that has met for over 10 years.
  • Languages. Broken Spanish (but still improving).
  • Mentoring. Big Brothers Big Sisters for three years. FIRST Lego League planning committee.

James Moran · Des Moines, Iowa

Engineer. Analyst. Builder. Human.

If you are hiring, or building something interesting, email me with opportunities. Or read my resume.

LinkedIn · GitHub