Kelsey serves as the assistant to the executive team at Spec. She received a BS in nutrition and a MA in education only to realize executive assistant work is her field of interest! In addition to her work, she is a wife and busy mom of two and enjoys cooking and eating tasty foods, game nights with friends, and exploring the walking trails of DFW where she lives. 

As the Technical Project Manager at Spec, Emily maintains and regulates all the compliance needs for the company. She is responsible for tracking and completing projects related to achieving and maintaining certifications that our customers trust. Before working at Spec, Emily graduated from Cal. State Monterey Bay with a B.S. in Statistics. After graduating, she hoped to work with people, data, and technology to transform conventional thoughts around education into a more modern approach, allowing education to be accessible for everyone. Emily loves singing, writing songs, reading poetry, creating entertaining content, and swimming outside work. If she had all the time and money in the world, she would put all her energy toward conducting lip-sync videos or co-writing scripts and directing films!

Matt has been selling in the business-to-business marketplace for over a decade; he’s a connector. He has always had sharp salesmanship skills, partly due to his curiosity about how humans make decisions. Matt is a big people person; he loves talking to people and learning about their stories. Then he connects them with solutions, even when that has nothing to do with his job. Years after people have met Matt; they’ll reach out to him and ask him for a connection. They know he’s met scores of people, and if he can help two people out, he will.

Esther is a DevOps engineer whose curiosity in Bash and Linux-based systems and her need to “just make things work” motivated her to switch into tech and engineering. Before working in the tech industry, she studied at UC Berkeley and earned her Bachelor’s degree, double majoring in Public Health and Integrative biology. Esther later worked at a lab at UCSF and various public health-related companies, including Healthy Communities Institute. Before spec, she was an operations engineer at ThreatMetrix and has worked in the cybersecurity and fraud space for over four years. Esther enjoys learning new technologies and is constantly chasing that incredible feeling one gets after finally making something work. Outside of work, you can find Esther going to live shows, playing chill games, working out, reading, and trying to figure out more improvements for her personal setup.

Jay is a software engineer, mathematician, and data scientist. He’s been programming and building electronic systems for as long as he can remember. After graduating with degrees in computer science and mathematics, Jay began building a diverse set of skills by working on websites, mobile applications on Android and iOS (even Windows Phone and Tizen), desktop applications for all major OSes, 3D graphics rendering, and down to embedded software. During his work at Wolfram Research, iRule (Kramer Electronics), and Bestow life insurance, he pursued data science which offered a unique set of mathematical challenges in building machine learning models, experimentation, and engineering modeling systems. When he can escape the screen, he spends his time raising his children with his wife, boating, camping, gardening, or simply meandering off into the woods.

Conor’s experience in fraud prevention and public cloud led him to Spec, where he serves on the Sales Engineering team. Previously an advisor to Spec, Conor joined full-time after getting a taste of working with exceptionally smart, empathetic, and fun team members. When he’s not working, Conor enjoys rockhounding in the Cascades, playing board games, and going to the dog park.

Jason has been a pillar in his role as an operations engineer. His career has taken him from big companies like Yahoo and SAP to startups like ThreatMetrix and Spec. He’s always willing to step in and help out when critical needs arise—ensuring that his team and their performance are excellent. Even though Jason has a great work ethic, he loves to joke around. He brings ease and a jovial nature to his company and team.

Jay has been in the SaaS industry for over 20 years. Prior to Spec, he was working in the Enterprise E-commerce space, helping organizations to become hyper-efficient utilizing a data-driven approach. Jay likes educating people on, what’s possible and sometimes out of the box. Outside work, he enjoys doing fun things with his daughters and wife. You may even find him out on the golf course if the sun is shining. Rumor has it that the first time he jumped into Lake Champlain, the lake got Jay Kelly.

Rachel holds a B.S in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics from Texas State University. Before Spec, she worked as a backend software engineer for Duo Security and Bestow Life Insurance. Her hobbies include hiking and solving crossword puzzles, though not at the same time.

Anthony Micara leads the Product Success team at spec, working closely with customers and technology partners to deliver first-class, trusted user experiences. Following a successful engineering consultant career, Anthony joined the fight against fraud by working at ThreatMetrix. He led technical implementations and professional service engagements for clients spanning financial services, government, and insurance verticals. Then he expanded from his device intelligence experience when he moved to BioCatch, where he collaborated with financial institutions and eCommerce businesses to deliver innovative solutions using behavioral biometrics. Now Anthony has returned to his roots of fighting fraud with spec. He joined to help solve business and technical challenges his customers faced when implementing new technologies and operationalizing fraud prevention strategies. In his free time, Anthony enjoys cooking with his family, playing ice hockey, and exploring the food scene in New York City, where he resides.

Matthew is a software engineer who’s been programming since he was a kid in the 90s. He’s worked in the technology industry for about a decade. Before working at Spec, he was a staff engineer at a life insurance startup, Bestow. Before switching to software, he got a master’s degree in biochemistry, researching in vitro protein interactions in degenerative brain diseases. Matthew’s been writing Rust for three years. Prior to joining Spec, he wrote json-logic-rs, a parser and evaluator for JsonLogic, and cuid-rust, an implementation of the cuid algorithm for creating globally unique identifiers in distributed systems. For over half a decade, he maintained pypiserver, one of the most popular Python package servers, and remains semi-active in its ongoing development. Matthew loves emacs and learning new programming languages, and he thinks Lisp is criminally underrated in the current programming zeitgeist. He spends his spare time writing, cycling, swimming, watching anime and french cinema, and trying to beat the heat in Austin, TX. He speaks French semi-fluently and is always down to practice.

Mark Noe is a Senior Product Success Manager at Spec, working closely with customers and technology partners to deliver first-class, trusted user experiences. Following his final US Navy active-duty tour at the Pentagon National Military Command Center, Mark joined the fight against international terrorism and financial crimes by working at Boeing Defense as an Intelligence Analysis & Technology Consultant supporting various agencies within the US Intelligence Community. He led technical implementations of the Boeing Defense Intelligence Platform within the Boeing Commercial Airplanes Headquarters and at a large Fortune 50 Property & Casualty Insurance Company’s Fraud Special Investigations Unit (SIU). After Boeing, Mark expanded his technical domain expertise by working in Product Management, Full Stack Software Engineering, and Solution Architecture Roles at a mix of startups and AWS. He joined Spec to help businesses embrace a next-generation approach to implementing new technologies and operationalizing fraud prevention strategies. Outside work, Mark still serves as a Surface Warfare Officer in the US Navy Reserve and spends his free time exploring the Pacific Northwest.

Tehya is a software engineer focused on front-end development but is growing in all aspects of the development process. Before working at Spec, she worked as a software engineer at Codesmith. During college, Tehya became interested in software engineering and web development, even though she studied journalism at the time. Outside of learning new technologies and working on innovative products. Tehya is most excited to be working alongside impressive engineers at Spec.

Grant Redfearn is a DevOps engineer with a passion for all things automation. His background in sound design has allowed him to break down problems into inputs and outputs, creating harmonious balances of abstraction and functionality. Grant has worked on teams as a solutions architect for enterprise clients to create award-winning web experiences. Noteworthy work includes re-platforming support documentation for Atlassian, web experience for the LBJ Library in Austin, auto insurance algorithms for Windhaven Insurance, and work with the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. Before software, Grant was a post-production audio engineer for Toy Gun Films, where he produced for movies, commercials, and radio. Here, Grant learned how to work with servers backing up projects. This foray into Linux became an obsession, and a software engineer was born. Beyond work, Grant finds peace in nature and can be found in his garden or competing in PDGA tournaments. His hobbies include playing guitar, tinkering on home automation projects, and getting lost in music.

Genifer Redington is a seasoned marketing executive with over 20 years of B2B Marketing experience within the SaaS industry. She’s worked in businesses from small business start-ups to Fortune 100 companies such as AT&T. She is responsible for developing and scaling our product & GTM marketing strategies, brand evolution and awareness, and campaign launch initiatives. Before Spec, Genifer was the Director of Marketing at an industry-leading tech company, where she focused on the GTM marketing for two first-to-market, end-to-end SaaS business platforms. Genifer earned two Bachelor’s degrees at the University of Missouri, one in Management, one in Marketing, and an MBA at Lindenwood University. During her free time, she likes to take any stress out on the ice rink, playing hockey in the WCHL.

Jess is a Sales Development Representative at spec. She focuses on creating relationships with prospects and customers to provide better business opportunities. Before spec, Jess worked in Client Services and Operations on the investment team at a financial wealth management firm. She earned her bachelor’s in Marketing at Coastal Carolina University. Jess lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and enjoys running outside, hiking, playing cards, tennis, and finding the next best spot to eat in her spare time. She also likes to travel and enjoys visiting Connecticut to visit and spend time with her family.

Brandon Smith is a former NFL athlete turned Fraud Fighter. He attended college on a full-ride football scholarship at Arizona State University and graduated with a degree in BIS. After his time in the National Football League, Brandon went out in pursuit of a new career. During his search, he discovered a spark of interest after hearing Spec founders Nate Kharrl and Patrick Chen talk passionately about protecting merchants in the fraud space. Brandon now devotes his time to reaching out to merchants to understand their fraud problems and provide them the visibility to make better judgment calls toward their end-users. During his free time, Brandon loves enjoying time with his family. While he resides in Rocklin, CA, he also loves to be involved with community sporting events and helping the youth who share the same dreams he had as a kid pave the way toward their goals.

Jonathan Tasman comes from an eclectic marketing background with experience in the film industry, working with Sony, CBS, and Nickelodeon to one of the leading companies in B2B Liquidation Hilco Fixture Finders. He is responsible for content creation, social media, SEO, website analytics, and external outreach. Before joining spec, Jonathan was the Director of Brand Development for the parent company of four different brands. Where he increased e-commerce traffic with SEO and increased sales leads through new opportunities in multiple brands. He likes to go to the gym to work out, write, and play strategy board games with his friends when he’s off-hours.

Justin is a Software Engineer at home in the UI and service layers. He holds a BA in psychology from Wesleyan University. Following a self-taught transition from theatrical direction to software, Justin has written endpoint telemetry systems and SPAs for Duo Security, built CMS-integrated web experiences for Whole Foods and Nulo, and designed core elements of the Bestow Life Insurance underwriting platform. He now leverages both his software and creative experience to grow out the Spec “Hub” user interface, and he relishes the chance to see what all this “Rust” hubbub is about on the side. When not slinging bits, Justin slings arrows (poorly) with a recurve bow, gets to craft beerin’ and a’ carryin’ on with his friends, and spends as much time near water as possible. He remains an incorrigible theater kid at heart.