Eric began his professional career as a financial analyst with Lockheed Martin. Within three months, he was promoted to financial manager and became the lead on a $400 million program to upgrade, integrate, and manage the Pentagon’s computer network and provide IT services to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. At the time, the program was the largest ever awarded to the Federal Information Technology arm of Lockheed Martin. While managing the financial aspect of the Pentagon contract, he was selected to lead a team of project managers on Project Noble Eagle, a massive engineering, design, and reconstruction effort necessary after September 11.

Eric was later selected as one of six employees across the corporation to participate in Lockheed Martin’s year-long corporate treasury rotational program. As an investment analyst, he worked with the treasurer and CFO of the corporation to identify and appraise opportunities to extract value from a $2 billion corporate portfolio of satellite, telecommunications, and information technology investments.

He also worked with the company’s venture capital arm to evaluate business plans for startup ventures aimed at leveraging proprietary military technology in the commercial marketplace. When Eric returned from corporate headquarters, he became the financial lead on a critical classified program with $40 million in annual sales as the senior program financial manager for the Special Projects Group. Leading a cross-functional team of 20 project managers, engineers, and subcontract personnel, his operational initiatives increased profit by $1 million over plan in 2003. He also opened and led successful negotiations with senior government contract officials that led to an additional $3 million in recurring profit.

In 2006, Eric received his MBA from the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia. While at Darden, he majored in entrepreneurship and finance, and served as a consultant to the Charlottesville/Albemarle Commission on Children and Families. His summer internship was spent with Diffusion Pharmaceuticals, a Charlottesville-based early drug discovery startup company. Eric joined Dynamic Literacy in August 2006.