Since February of 2015, Les has proudly served as the Director of the Blackstone LaunchPad at Montana State University, where he works to passionately encourage students and alumni to pursue entrepreneurial careers.
In 2014, Les Co-founded The Twenty (getthetwenty.com), a data science services company based in Bethesda, MD which operates a high profile network of senior mathematicians and computer scientists on specialized project based work for clients ranging from start-‐ups to publically traded companies and government organizations.
Prior to The Twenty, Les Co-founded RedOwl Analytics (redowlanalytics.com), a software product company which built a platform for identifying trends and anomalies in the digital trail of corporations in order to combat insider threat and mitigate risk in financial services, cyber security, and US government spaces.
Previously, Les served as a Technical Operations Officer at the Central Intelligence Agency where he received specialized training in telecommunications and computer networks. He was fully certified for world-‐wide deployment as a technical field engineer and traveled extensively between 2009-‐2011.
Prior to his time at the CIA, Les was a member of the professional staff of the National Security Technology Department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. In this capacity he led an Operations Research team in the development of powerful predictive and geospatial analytic products used by military commanders to make battlefield decisions related to the counter improvised explosive device (IED) fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Les considers his time as a US Army Infantry Platoon Leader (173rd Airborne Brigade and 1st Ranger Battalion) as the most critical and formative years in learning what it means to serve others and build cohesive teams. While on active duty, Les served on multiple special operations task forces, as well as an Aide-‐de-‐camp to a senior intelligence professional on General Stan McChrystal’s staff at Joint Special Operations Command from 2006-‐2008. He graduated 2nd overall in the class of 2003 at West Point with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Applied Mathematics.
Passionate about Veteran issues, Les currently serves as the Director of Operations for the COMMIT Foundation, a non-‐profit that helps Veterans transition from active duty to the private sector. He is also on the board of advisors of Vergence Technologies, a stealth video analytics company. Since October of 2015, Les has also served on the Board of Directors for Montana State University Innovation Campus (MSUIC).
