Central Washington University

Roosevelt High School, Seattle

Boston University

Actively seeking good work that makes a difference.

Seattle, Washington, United States

Amplify creates innovative technology solutions that enhance personalized learning for K-12 students. I worked on the Shared Learning Infrastructure project, a $300 million effort by The Gates Foundation and the National Governor’s Association to develop an open-source reference platform for use by states in the creation of modern Student Longitudinal Data Systems.  PRODUCT AND PROGRAM MANAGEMENTServed as Agile Product Owner for a 9-member engineering team (ReST API and MongoDB NoSQL Document-Oriented datastore technologies; Java; JSON; XML, etc.) and a 4-person technical documentation team using Flare and Confluence. Participated in requirements gathering, feature definition, and stakeholder interaction using Dean Leffingwell’s Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). Provided education domain expertise to engineers, architects, and legal on a variety of issues ranging from applications of education technology that enhance personalized learning, data security, performance optimization, and near-term and long-term liability issues regarding FERPA and other aspects of handling student data.  Managed product backlog, user story definition, and feature prioritization, etc.Developed “Lean Canvas” business plans for enterprise educational products in school system economics, mobile app suites for teachers and administrators, technology-enhanced teacher training and professional development, and Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications and SaaS business models.Amplify creates innovative technology solutions that enhance personalized learning for K-12 students. I worked on the Shared Learning Infrastructure project, a $300 million effort by The Gates Foundation and the National Governor’s Association to develop an open-source reference platform for use by states in the creation of modern Student Longitudinal Data Systems.

Amplify Learning

Agile Product Owner

Exem Corporation developed Internet-based enterprise content management systems for the publication of large, high-performance dynamic websites. PRODUCT AND PROGRAM MANAGEMENTDeveloped UI/UX and managed feature requirements for the “Exem Content Refinery”, the company’s main CMS platform. Designed UI/UX and produced feature specification for the “Exem Index Refinery”, an automated content indexing system. Created content taxonomy and contributed to the creation of a simple algorithm for automatically identifying key topics in web pages. Developed competitive analyses of other CMS vendors and analyses of vertical markets to determine product development, sales, and marketing strategies.  TRAINING DESIGN AND DELIVERYInstructed sales staff on product use, product demonstration materials, competitive landscape, marketing, and requirements of clients in vertical markets. Trained new clients on basic product functions and their application to common business problems in large-scale team content production for the Web. Developed self-paced training information for end users to familiarize themselves with product features and get them up and running quickly without formal assistance.

Exem Corporation

Director of Product Development

I worked with K-12 and university educators on curriculum, instruction, and assessment to improve student achievement and develop instructional leadership capacity. I also worked with corporations on written communication, product development, sales and marketing, service delivery, human capital development, and organizational culture.  LEARNING DESIGNDesigned “The Effective Learning Series”, an in-paper literacy curriculum for The Seattle Times.Designed “College Unbound”, a program that helps high school students make better decisions about college.Designed “ReaderActive”, a 1-to-1 tutoring program for individual instruction in reading .CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENTCo-developed “The Culture Engine”, a simple approach to change for teams.Developed “Integrated Literacy”, a curriculum for K-12 learners that allows teachers to teach reading and writing simultaneously.Developed, evaluated, and edited a wide variety of curricula—in-person, online, hybrid, synchronous, and asynchronous—for over 100 schools and districts.TRAININGDelivered training in Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and Lean methods of product development.Delivered individualized coaching support to educational and corporate leaders on strengthening workforce motivation, increasing product quality, improving process efficiency, and reducing risk.Graduate of 21st Century Leadership.WRITINGAuthor of “Be a Better Writer”, a multi-award-winning, Amazon #1 bestselling book.Weekly contributor to The National Journal Education Experts Blog.Published articles on major websites like The Washington Post, Psychology Today, InfoQ, Edutopia, and others. PRODUCT AND PROGRAM DEVELOPMENTConsulted with The Gates Foundation, Amplify, Time4Learning, John Hancock, The Kauffman Foundation. Proposed the idea of Agile Schools in the first published article on the subject. Presented on Agile methods at Google, Yahoo!, PayPal, Agile 2013, QCon 2014, Trifork Amsterdam.

Teaching That Makes Sense, Inc.

Program Manager: Learning Design, Curriculum Development, and Training

Midisoft Corporation was a Windows-based multimedia and educational software developer. It acquired my previous software company, Music Technology Associates (see below). My business partner and I joined the company to head up Product Development and to take Midisoft through a brief transition period after their Initial Public Offering (IPO).  PRODUCT AND PROGRAM MANAGEMENTLed integration of Music Technology Associates’ product line into Midisoft product line. Managed localization (L10N) and internationalization (I18N) of product line into French, Italian, Spanish, German, and Dutch. Developed product plans and other strategy documents to support continued R&D, new products, and product line extensions. Participated in strategic planning which resulted in top management’s decision to use product acquisitions as a strategy for increasing product offerings without incurring significant R&D costs. Assisted in selecting and vetting appropriate acquisition targets to add new products using company stock instead of significant cash expenditure.

Midisoft Corporation

Product Manager

Music Technology Associates created educational software and provided consulting to leaders in the music and computer industries. The company was acquired by Midisoft Corporation in conjunction with its IPO.  PRODUCT AND PROGRAM DEVELOPMENTDeveloped award-winning software for The Windows Multimedia PC platform including “Music Mentor”, “The Music Library”, and “The World of Music Sampler”. Created popular “mixer view” user interface for “Midisoft Studio for Windows”.  Produced and performed “Striving for Glory: The Windows 3.1 Theme Song” at Microsoft’s global launch of Windows 3.1, COMDEX, 1993.Created line extension strategy for Midisoft Corporation, taking a single product and turning it into a suite of six complementary products. Provided product development and marketing strategy advice to companies such as Kurzweil, Asymetrix, Yamaha, Roland, and others.  WRITINGWrote articles for industry publications like MacWeek, Keyboard, and Electronic Music as well as chapters on audio and video production for the McGraw-Hill book "Multimedia: Making It Work." By Tay Vaughan of The Hypermedia Group.Published articles in national industry magazines like Keyboard and Electronic Musician. Wrote extensive amounts of end user technical documentation for wide variety of products.

Music Technology Associates

Director Of Product Development

The JLR Group produced original music for film, TV, and stage. The company also provided consulting in the music technology industry and produced educational software.  PRODUCT AND PROGRAM DEVELOPMENTCreated the “Petrucci” PostScript font for the introduction of the “Finale Music Publishing System” and contributed to the product’s user interface design. (“Finale” is the world’s most popular music publishing system and is still in wide use more than 30 years later.)Participated in the development of “Adventures in Musicland”, educational music software with an “Alice in Wonderland” theme.  Composed music for stage and screen including sound design work on the Blake Edwards’ film, “Switch”. Created and produced the “Up and Running” marketing and user education program for “RolandCorpUS”. Consulted with Articulate Systems to create a product introduction strategy for “The Voice Navigator”, the world’s first voice recognition system for desktop computers. (The product later became Dragon Dictate.)Designed features, developed UI, and produced documentation of products for Yamaha, Coda, Kurzweil, RolandCorpUS, and others. Developed a digital music strategy for PolyGram International Publishing that anticipated the age of .mp3 downloads and digital streaming by 10 years.Served for three years as President of the Boston Computer Society’s Music and Computers group—at the time, the largest such user group in the world. (Conducted meetings, worked with vendors, ran the annual conference, etc.)TECHNICAL WRITINGAuthor of the multi-volume set of end user documentation for the “Kurzweil 250 v6 Sampling Keyboard”.Co-Author of the multi-volume set of end user documentation for the “Finale Music Publishing System”.Co-Author of the end user documentation for the “Bitstream Type Cartridge” font storage system for Hewlett Packard laser printers.Co-Author of educational materials and end user documentation for Yamaha’s “Music in Education (MIE) Program”.

Steve Peha