I've run restaurants, IT operations, and production infrastructure. These days I put that operator's eye on what technology actually changes — for organizations, and at home. I help organizations fit technology to how they actually run, and set their AI rules on purpose, before informal use sets them by default.
I run Haists Consulting. The work is fitting technology to how an organization actually runs, across the whole stack — infrastructure, security, workflows, and AI. I don't sell technology. Having operated restaurants, IT departments, and production infrastructure, I look at a tech stack from the operator's side of the counter: what does this change on the floor, in the office, in the budget.
I serve nonprofit organizations in board advisory and leadership advisory capacities, and I take on a small number of select implementation projects with partner organizations — structured deliberately to generate honest performance data on what AI actually delivers, and what it doesn't.
This is a working practice, not a storefront. I take a small number of engagements at a time so the work stays honest. If your organization is carrying a technology decision it keeps circling, start a conversation.
Most engagements start with the question every leadership team is now carrying: what are our rules for AI? Your staff are already using it. The risk is not the use — it's that nobody has decided the rules.
AI policy, set on purpose. I work with a leadership team in one session and leave them a short written policy they can actually enforce:
Approved tools. Named, with the reasons.
Data rules. What can be shared with an AI tool and what stays out, in plain language staff will follow.
Human review. Who checks AI output before anyone relies on it, and for what kinds of work.
The wrong-tool path. What happens when someone crosses a line, without blame theater.
The same engagement extends across the stack when it needs to: vendor decisions, infrastructure, security posture, the workflow a tool was supposed to fix. AI policy is the front door, not the whole house.
Who this is for: nonprofits, small businesses, manufacturers, farm operations, and professional firms — organizations big enough to carry the risk and small enough that this is nobody's job title. That gap is most of the economy, and it is where I work.
I'm the founder of wabash.ai — an AI-literacy initiative in its infancy, being stood up to promote responsible and efficient use of AI for all.
I build and run the technical side of it personally — the site, the tooling, the systems underneath — the same way I approach everything else in this work.
If you're curious what responsible, efficient AI use actually looks like in practice — not the hype, not the doom — that's what wabash.ai is for.
Visit wabash.ai →“First Light” — In 1880, Wabash, Indiana became the first city in the world lit entirely by electricity. A small town proved new technology could work, in public, before anyone had to take it on faith. wabash.ai is the same idea, aimed at AI instead of electricity.
Wabash, Indiana. Clear to the stone.
The lab from the BSides talk didn't stop at the stage.
At home I run a private family cloud on my own hardware — media, files, identity, home automation — operated day-to-day with AI agents rather than by hand. It's the working successor to the lab in the talk, and it's the proving ground: I don't recommend anything anywhere else that I haven't already run here first.
A talk I gave at BSides Fort Wayne 2026.
The short version: I spent about $200 a month on an AI subscription and, over a few months, worked my way from three servers in a spare room to a real, running platform — Kubernetes, a secrets vault, single sign-on, active threat blocking, GitOps, the whole stack. I didn't set out to give a talk about it; I just kept building, and eventually had something worth explaining honestly, mistakes included. That's what the talk covers.
For advisory or project work, tell me the organization, roughly how many people, and what you're trying to decide. I read everything myself and answer everything myself.
If it's about wabash.ai, start there. For the talk, or anything else, the form works too.
Based in Wabash, Indiana