Aside from his work at the Contorer Foundation, Aaron is an information technology investor and advisor.
Aaron is a director of Everyone Counts, Inc., which delivers secure, reliable election services by Internet and telephone. He is also advisor to the CEO of Benchmark Revenue Management, which streamlines and improves hospital revenue cycles through proprietary software systems. He is actively working with additional startup technology companies in the western United States.
Aaron is a former executive of Microsoft Corporation, where he helped to build Windows, MSN, Visual Studio, and the company's Productivity Tools Team, and founded the Microsoft Big Gift Club for new philanthropists. He was the architect of MSN's move to Internet-based server software, and later served as full-time technology advisor to the CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates.
He is an inventor of several patented innovations in computer networking and security, with additional patents currently pending. One of the creators of the "shareware" software business model in the 1980s, he has been an in-house executive of four early-stage software companies, typically as CTO and Director.
Aaron is cofounder and chairman of Equinox Center, a nonpartisan policy center, and a director of Move San Diego, a transportation advocacy coalition. He was named Environmental Leader of the Year by San Diego's Channel 10 News.
In Seattle, Aaron helped to build the Kirkland Teen Union Building and served for eight years on the board of Sightline Institute, focusing on sprawl and sustainable economic development. Now based in San Diego, he is president of the Contorer Foundation, focusing on sustainability and philanthropy studies, and a partner in San Diego Social Venture Partners, working to increase regional philanthropy.
Aaron has been interviewed in People, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Seattle Times, the Kirkland Courier, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and as well as numerous industry publications.
