Hello, I’m Jerome. I’m a professional engineer, aviator, military officer, and outdoorsman.
I started this blog to explore a common theme I noticed amongst my pursuits, professional and personal. From diving to mountaineering, flight instruction to running construction sites, pursuing jihadists to building airplanes, all involve undertaking inherently risky activities. Further, these communities acknowledge the risk of their undertakings, dispassionately study it, and then control it – often to an astonishing degree.
What I’ve found fascinating is that while many of the risk management concepts between these pursuits are similar, all use a different language. Similarly, like the blind men describing the elephant, no single community seems to have an all-encompassing risk management framework, and all have tidbits that seem applicable to others. Through this project, I primarily use personal vignettes to identify the risk management tools I find myself using, how they are formally applied, and in what other communities or pursuits they could be applied.
The name “Hacking in the Free World” is an obvious riff on the (admittedly mediocre) Neil Young song, serving as an homage to a uniquely American culture that embraces and celebrates risk. Having visited roughly 30 countries, and lived in a handful, this cultural quirk seems to be the defining driver of the U.S.’ exceedingly long “win column”. From heroic feats of engineering, from the Panama Canal to the Moon Landings, motorsports born of prohibition smuggling and garage-built aircraft, and a nation that both preserved its wilderness and actively celebrates it, the willingness to look into the abyss of staggeringly hazardous pursuits, and reply “why not?” is a root of greatness.
And in an age where we could all use a few more dreams and a little more greatness, why not start there and see where the road leads us?
Thanks for joining me!
-Jerome
