Richard Schafer
Thirty-seven years from Army mobile subscriber switching through network operations, field installation, provisioning, engineering management, company ownership, SaaS product and platform delivery, enterprise architecture, procurement, supply chain, edge AI hardware, and multi-agent AI systems built by hand.
Been there, engineered it, built it, changed it, optimized it, led it, refactored it, and still building. The principal who scopes your work is the one who performs and directs it.
Full-stack capability across software, APIs, data, compute, networks, containers, local AI models, enterprise platforms, and edge hardware. Operated the infrastructure by hand, architected and priced the enterprise system, founded and sold a company, owned the product, and still builds.
That range is what lets one person carry a build from requirements through architecture, development, integration, testing, and handoff without the work changing hands, and make the call where two domains disagree and both are technically correct.
The same job, every decade.
One pattern runs through all of it: take an expensive problem nobody is measuring and make it decidable.
Army 31F → VP / COO
Mobile subscriber network switching in uniform, then network operations, provisioning, field installation, and engineering management. Hands on the equipment (frame relay, T1, SONET, routing, SNMP) before ever managing anyone. Later turned a telecom operation to profitability in three months and $6M revenue in six, with an OSHA and safety program for 80+ dispersed technicians.
Owner & CTO
Converted a resale business into a technology and SaaS operation, launched a trading exchange and e-commerce platform, built the infrastructure and the global team, and sold the company’s intellectual property in 2009. Separately, sole inventor on U.S. Patent 6,533,248 B1, a cable-rack installation tool that cut a 30–45 minute task to 3–5 minutes and a twelve-installer crew to three.
Chief Technology Officer
Led METIS, an enterprise SaaS platform for demand and inventory planning, forecasting, BOM allocation, warehouse visibility, asset recovery, and last-mile material movement across a large telecom deployment ecosystem. Tracked more than $150M per month in issued material and surfaced over $5M per month as recoverable. Material planning accuracy reported at 98%. Cut hosting costs by more than 30% on migration. Co-inventor, U.S. Patent 8,650,101 B1.
Program Manager → Solutions Principal → Product Manager
Ran ERP and CRM integration across order-to-cash for a post-acquisition global organization, including the adoption and training that made it stick. Converted Fortune 500 ambiguity into costed, multi-year transformation roadmaps across AI, NLP, RPA, data, cloud, and automation, owning the architecture, the estimate, and the delivery governance. Then product management for AI-driven edge hardware, turning complex sizing and configuration decisions into repeatable tooling.
Founder & Managing Member
Built a sovereign AI architecture that can be opened, inspected, and reasoned about, rather than an appliance you take on faith. See Argus OS.
Certifications, patents, and service.
Listed as held. Coursework is identified as coursework, and certification preparation is never presented as certification.
Certifications held
Formal training
Patents
Certifications and set-aside authority
Federal set-aside eligibility rests solely on the SBA certifications.
Military service
United States Army, 31F Mobile Subscriber Network Switching Systems Operator. Combat veteran, Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Service-connected disabled veteran.
Book a 30-minute technical call.
A first conversation covers the objective, the constraints, and how the work would be approached. You get a straight technical read from the principal who would perform it.