Michael Bauer

1506 South Washington Street, Denver CO, 80210 | 303.888.5881 | me@michaelbauer.com

ENTERPRISE GRAPH ARCHITECT
Innovator | Integrator | Inventor

Key Achievements

• Architected multi-billion node graph platforms using Neo4j, integrating Graph-RAG and semantic search
• Founded ontology-based software firms and created early ontology-powered web platforms
• Led ontology strategies for major enterprises including The Home Depot, Evernorth, and Dice Holdings
• Built knowledge graph visualizations, ontology management tools, and intelligent search systems

Core Skills

• Ontology Design
• Graph Algorithms
• Semantic Technology
• Neo4j
• Python
• LLM Integration
• Cross-Team Facilitation
• RDFS/OWL/SPARQL
• 3D Data Visualization
• Product Strategy
• Stakeholder Alignment

Experience

Ontology Architect | Evernorth | 2023–Present – Architected Graph-as-Platform in Neo4j for multi-billion node enterprise knowledge graph; applied Graph-RAG and community detection algorithms; led cross-team semantic standardization.

Consulting Ontologist | The Home Depot | 2021–2022 – Built Neo4j ontology services integrating Google Vision API; improved document search with structured semantic metadata.

Senior Ontologist | Dice Holdings | 2019–2021 – Cross-walked occupational ontologies, expanded SKOS/RDFS vocabularies, and integrated semantic frameworks with ML pipelines.

Founder & CTO | Brilliant Arc | 2007–2019 – Developed global search ontologies, ontology-based platforms (Trajectory, Enlightenment), and led distributed dev teams.

VP, Ontology Strategy | Local Matters | 2002–2007 – Designed multi-tenant local search platform; led product R&D and UX-driven ontology experimentation.

VP, Open Source Relations | Jabber, Inc. | 2000–2001 – Founded Jabber Software Foundation (now XMPP); led IP, licensing, and open-source alignment strategies.

Founder & CEO | Imperative! | 1993–1998 – Launched MapQuest online; developed one of the first ontology-based content management systems.

Knowledge Craft Product Manager | Carnegie Group | 1987–1993 – Led expert systems development in CRL/RETE for major clients; managed machine translation projects.

Education

M.S., Industrial Administration (MBA) | Carnegie Mellon University | 1990–1993

M.S., Computer Science | University of Pittsburgh | 1982–1984

B.S., Mathematics | Millersville University of Pennsylvania | 1978–1982