I help real people use AI well - from the basics to the builds.

I'm Stephen Thorn. I've worked across sales, product, and engineering at both startups and large companies.

I started as a U.S. Marine Corps Infantry Officer, Naval Academy graduate, led teams of up to 200 personnel, served as Chief of Staff and Operations Director. The Marines taught me how to lead under pressure, communicate with precision, and build systems that work when things get complicated.

After transitioning out, I spent years as a Solutions Engineer and technical leader, at Percona, Sosivio, Babel Street, and now TiDB, where I lead the AI Center of Excellence. As an SE, my job was never to sell. It was to translate complex technology into plain English, run hands-on demos, and train people to use tools with confidence. I've published 23 technical workshops and blogs, and built tools that cut engineering setup time by 98%.

That career prepared me perfectly for what I do now: I help real people and small businesses use AI well. Sometimes that's a beginner's first workshop. Sometimes it's consulting - figuring out which tools fit, designing a workflow, or prototyping a lightweight internal AI assistant. I build with AI every day, and that hands-on experience drives everything I teach, advise on, and build for clients.

I'm not a machine learning researcher or PhD scientist. I'm not building custom neural networks from scratch. I'm not an enterprise-scale AI infrastructure consultant. And I'm not a healthcare compliance specialist or legal advisor.

I'm someone who uses AI tools at a professional level every day and helps real people and organizations get practical value from them. If your needs go beyond what I do, I'll tell you that directly and point you somewhere better. That honesty is part of the deal.