Three decades of building, breaking, and securing.

The starting line. Everything else on this page is what came after.

A childhood split between California and Arkansas — unstable, uncertain, chaotic. The day that sticks: walking home from school to find the AMC Gremlin gone, the brothers bandaged from a wreck, and mom at the table eating raw hamburger meat from the package. The origin of a lifelong craving for certainty and significance — and, eventually, of the Secure Methodology that argues against both.

Junior year at USAFA. Grandpa Gordon Virgil Ratledge — WWII vet, Purple Heart, land-mine survivor — was the only father figure. The goodbye went unsaid. Thirty years later, that single in-between moment became the seed of the second book.

Graduated Clarksville High School in Arkansas as Salutatorian. The salutatorian address was the first speech of a life that would eventually be built around them.

Graduated with an engineering degree, then to Keesler AFB for first cybersecurity training.

A competitive friend threw down a challenge. Accepted it without owning a bike and barely able to swim the length of a backyard pool. Borrowed a bike, raced the Scott AFB Olympic with no socks, crossed the line with bloody feet and beat the friend. The Ironman mantra picked up that day still applies: Anything Is Possible.

Years of penetration testing, incident response, and consulting across regulated industries crystallized into patented methods for rehearsing attacks before adversaries could.

Walked into the CEO's office and resigned with no next job lined up. Then deep inner work: Landmark Forum, the Dickens Process, and the slow dismantling of the need to be the smartest person in the room. The chapter that made the next one possible.

Roped-team glacier travel, crevasse rescue, and self-arrest on the Muir snowfield — preparation for the bigger peaks that followed.

Two of the Seven Summits. Kilimanjaro in 2013, where the question stopped being 'what's next?' and started being 'what for?' Elbrus in 2015, where the loneliness of relentless achievement landed for the first time — the seed of Show No Weakness.

Exited after six years of growth, with 50+ medical device cybersecurity submissions cleared, zero clearance failures.

December 2021. On the flight in, a parent-company CEO threatened him over Secure Methodology IP. Copenhagen immigration flagged him at the border. A month later, the relationship with Trisha ended. The Danish bottom that The In-Between is built around.

A service-disabled veteran-owned medical device cybersecurity firm. FDA premarket and postmarket, built on AAMI SW96, ISO 13485, ISO 14971, IEC 62304, SPDF, and SBOMs.

Memoir published December 12, 2023. Leadership through self-leadership, recognizing the small moments that decide the big ones.

Under Christian's leadership, Blue Goat Cyber has supported more than 250 FDA medical device submissions with no client failing to clear due to cybersecurity.

Bells Beach to the Waipio Valley to the back roads of Tulum. 200 scuba dives along the way. Travel as the long, slow education that work alone never finishes.

200 scuba dives. Many Half Ironmans, 50-mile ultramarathons, and multiday adventure races. Endurance pursued now for connection, not for proof.