Mike spent over 40 years in the defense industry. Mike graduated from the California State University, Northridge (CSUN) in 1982 with a bachelor's degree in computer science where his specialty study area was numerical analysis. He began his career supporting anti-submarine warfare systems at the Lockheed Corporation in southern California. In 1985 he helped found Vista Controls Corporation, a pioneer in bringing commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) electronic solutions to the military. In 2000, Mike joined the MITRE Corporation, a Federally Funded Research and Development Company (FFRDC), as a Senior Technical Manager. His most notable assignment was that of Program Manager for MITRE's support to the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program; in this capacity, Mike led the development of the Network Centric System of Systems Architecture for FCS.

Mike joined Curtiss-Wright in 2005 as a Business Development Director. He moved on to become the Vice President of Strategic Planning for Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions. While in this role, Mike also served as the Curtiss-Wright representative on the VITA board of directors, where he was active in guidance of VITA. Mike retired from Curtiss-Wright in 2022.