Mike is a software engineer and technologist, spending much of the last 20+ years working in various facets in the industry, from co-founding startups to leadership roles at more established companies. He is currently a Distinguished Engineer at Slack (part of Salesforce), leading various projects from infrastructure scalability to advanced product development.

He was born and raised in NYC, spending his early years at the Collegiate School in NYC, then went on to receive a B.S. in Computer Science from Brown University (go Bears!), and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from U.C. Berkeley (go Bears!). While at Cal, his research focused on networking and distributed systems for challenged environments, ranging from rural areas of developing countries to deep space.

Mike lives in San Francisco with his wife Rachel Benson, an equus life coach and filmmaker, and his two children Sasha (Bay class of ‘28) and Zach. Throughout his kids’ time at the San Francisco School, Mike contributed to the community in various ways – room parent, capital campaign class captain, volunteer at various school events, etc – and is looking forward to engaging strategically as a trustee at Bay, as the school continues to evolve and grow.

In his spare time, Mike plays “beer league” recreational ice hockey (go Prairie Dogs!), is an avid skier, taking various mountain adventures with family and friends, and enjoys biking / hiking / running the California hills.