Stuart Rhea

Background

About Stuart Rhea

I believe that nurturing and caring for growing things is a fundamental act of hope; a physical manifestation of optimism. That’s the kind of thing that the world needs more of. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to grow a business, a family, a heard of cattle, a field of corn, or your own tomatoes - you have my respect and admiration. I’ve lived two lives so far, and recently just started on my third. The first was as a Chemist. Growing up, I was always fascinated by how things worked. I wanted to understand how the smallest parts of the universe interacted and worked together. That lead me to my Master’s in Physical Chemistry. I specialized in building instrumentation and computational models to study how energy moved through molecules and materials with the hope of understanding how to better control it. My second life was as a Software Engineer. It’s the precision and control that appeals to me the most about writing code. The bending of hardware to my will to accomplish something. That life took me across the entire spectrum of platforms: embedded systems, mobile devices, web & API development, desktop applications, and cloud architecture. The non-technical aspects were almost as varied. When needed I served as a manager, a tech lead, a business analyst, a project manager, a product manager, and most significantly as a mentor - almost 25 years at this point. This third life is…well, in progress. I’m building my own data strategy consulting practice. I became deeply involved in data and data standards about 15 years ago. That has allowed me to travel and present internationally and to make a significant contribution to the agriculture industry by helping to architect a data interoperability framework that is used globally. I intend to continue similar work in my practice; focusing on helping organizations develop their data-driven decision-making capabilities by delivering bespoke data strategies, not just solving problems, but partnering to innovate.