Mike Hower
Always learning, always leading.
About
I'm a location-independent builder with a home base in Box Elder, South Dakota — near Mount Rushmore — though my work has taken me a lot further than that.
After graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy, I spent 20 years in the Air Force flying satellites and leading some of the best teams in the world — space operations, missile systems, and training programs that stretched from Colorado to Thule, Greenland, 750 miles from the North Pole. I retired from active duty in 2011.
Since then I've led learning and organizational-development work for government, corporate, and non-profit clients across North America, retiring from that career in September 2026 — forty years after it all began. These days I split my time between writing and traveling, and the projects on this site are the ones I do purely for their own sake. Want the long version of how I got here? It's all at /history/.
The long version — 40 years, one list
- Flew satellites and led space operations teams across multiple Air Force commands
- Commanded an Air Force squadron; led leadership-development programs for thousands of officers
- Designed training programs for multi-billion dollar space and missile systems
- Built the Air Force's first community-of-practice platform for lifelong learning
- Co-wrote a guidebook on social learning and professional networking
- Led curriculum and technology transformation for Air University's professional military education
- Coached leaders across military, corporate, and non-profit organizations
Projects
Current Projects
The Republic Project
A coherent system under construction — seven components addressing America's moral, institutional, civic, and cultural foundations, built around one question: how does a free society remain functional across time, scale, and change?
Golden Radio Theater
Old-time radio from the Internet Archive's OTRR sets, browsed by program and broadcast date — tune in the dial. Early pilot: three programs live now, more to come.
(Requires Lyrion Music Server)
CrateDigger
Browse the Internet Archive's full-album collections as a cover-art grid — dig the crates, then play.
(Requires Lyrion Music Server)
Workbench
Smaller projects that don't need a home of their own — each one nested as its own page here rather than its own subdomain.
A Commonplace Book
Interpretive essays on quotations and passages worth keeping — a commonplace book in the tradition Jefferson kept, curated and read by Lexa.
Past Projects
Earlier work I want to showcase — more coming soon.
Social Learning for the Air Force
How I built and ran an Air Force peer-learning network for six years, why it ended, and what I carried out of it.
Read the story →Coming soon
Earlier project work, to be added.
Coming soonFormer Companies
Companies I've founded or led — archived, not active.
Right Edge Consulting
Coming soon.
True North Solutions
Coming soon.
The Mike Hower Company
Coming soon.
Contact
Find me on the platforms below.