Chad Capellman (chadrem)

I'm the person who writes the proposal, builds the deck, leads the pitch, and stays until we shake hands on the contract.

That's meant wins with the Smithsonian Institution, King County Regional Housing Authority, and Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority. It's meant delivering a memorized 15-minute TED-style talk on open source adoption to 200+ transportation executives at IBTTA. And it's meant being voted by teammates for a "Symphony Soloist Award," honoring my ability to bring fresh perspective while staying coordinated with the orchestra behind me.

My job is connecting what clients need to what we do, and building systems that let us do it repeatably. I also help lead our AI governance work, because how we use these tools matters as much as whether we use them.

What I actually do:

I synthesize complexity into clarity. A colleague once said I "cut through all our collective b*****t to find the golden thread in everyone's story." That's the job, whether I'm building proposal strategy for a six-figure government contract, designing an AI-powered workflow tool, or leading 25 stakeholder meetings to secure buy-in for a 30,000-page website redesign.

The dual perspective that makes me different:

I've been on both sides of the table. As a seller, I've led enterprise pitches across public sector (including the redesign for DC.gov), healthcare, nonprofit, and higher education. As a buyer, I led the digital team at Massachusetts General Hospital and managed the RFP process for their website redesign. I understand what enablement content needs to accomplish on both ends.

The AI piece:

I don't just talk about AI adoption. I build with it. I've used Claude and ChatGPT to generate deliverables that justified budgets for multi-year, six-figure contracts. I've built AI-powered proposal evaluation tools, led a three-hour prompting workshop for a global nonprofit, and serve on Kalamuna's AI governance committee.

The through-line:

Twenty-five years in, from newsrooms to O'Reilly Media to healthcare to federal capture to digital agencies, I still get excited when a pitch lands. The craft is the thing.

Technology should serve humanity, not the other way around. The organizations I work with use new tools to enhance rather than replace the human connections and creative imperfections that give our work meaning.I'm the person who writes the proposal, builds the deck, leads the pitch, and stays until we shake hands on the contract.