> cat readme.md_
Travis
Fraser
AI builder and operator. 13+ years across sales, operations, and analytics before Berkeley Haas; now I ship AI products and I’m recruiting for product and applied-AI roles. Happiest on hard, ambiguous problems, on the trail or in the terminal.
> cd ./ascent
Trailhead MILE 0
Who I am
I find dated or broken
processes, and I build
something better.
That instinct runs through 13+ years in sales, operations, customer success, and process consulting, from founding employee at a startup to managing a $4.5M market, and it’s what brought me to Haas.
Now I build things: Rubrica, SiteProof, Strava Conquer, Ask Travis. I’m also a GSI for Microeconomics at UC Berkeley. When I’m not building, I’m likely negotiating grades with undergrads who are smarter than me.
Waypoints 6 MARKED
What I’ve built
Rubrica
Privacy-first AI exam grading
Keeps stored names and cover pages out of grading requests, grades against decomposed rubrics with Claude vision, maps results back locally. Author-run cross-model comparison: ICC 0.966, QWK 0.883.
Python / FlaskClaude VisionSQLite
850+ exams
Ratchet
A quality gate for LLM prompts
Score prompt changes against your own ground truth; nothing ships unless it wins on data it never saw. Its first real test lifted grounded accuracy from 95.6% to 97.7% and took one stubborn failure from 12 cases to zero.
PythonGround-truth evalsHeld-out gate
Open source
SiteProof
Building now · with my brother
Vision detects damage; a separate deterministic engine prices the repair across 62 item types, so the model can never hallucinate a dollar figure. Live in pilot today.
Python / FlaskVision AIVercel
Live pilot
Ask Travis
Grounded RAG assistant
Structurally safe: answers only from a public-safe corpus, so a jailbreak can only surface public facts. Red-teamed with 161 attacks: zero leaks, zero fabrications. Keeps no conversation history.
Vercel FunctionsClaude APIUpstash Redis
161 attacks · 0 leaks
Strava Conquer
PM portfolio project
The same activity data, split into two products: one for the competitor chasing PRs, one for the rider trying to stay healthy. A “Conquer” feature turns a goal into a go / caution / no-go verdict. Every metric traces to a cited paper; the AI never invents a number.
Python / FlaskStrava APIClaude API
Built for a PM interview
Build School
Teaching · free guides
Free, self-guided guides that get anyone from zero to shipped with AI, no coding. The first takes you from a resume to a live site to a chatbot that sounds like you. More as I build them.
Claude CodeVercelRAG
Free · self-guided
More on GitHub: MTB Cosmos, world-model spatial-reasoning research on chest-cam MTB footage
Base_Camp DOUBLE BEAR
Academic background
2025–2027
MBA, AI for Business
UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business
2022–2024
BA, Global Studies & Economics
University of California, Berkeley
2023–2024
Study Abroad, Political Economy
Meiji Gakuin University, Yokohama
2020–2025
AA, Japanese · AA, Fine Arts
Saddleback College
Gear PACKED
What I work with
Build
Python / Flask / FastAPIClaude Code & APIVision pipelinesLocal models (MLX, Gemma)React / VitePostgres / SQLiteVercel serverlessPyTorchLM Studio / Ollama
Analyze
Data analysis & PandasEvals against ground truthLLM labeling at scaleRed-team testingModel A/B testingSQLExcel / VBA
Lead
Product managementSales & revenue growthCustomer successCross-functional leadershipProcess improvement
Points_of_Interest 6 PINS
What interests me
Artificial Intelligence
How AI reshapes products, workflows, and whole industries. And more importantly, when the technology is actually the right tool. Certified in AI/ML.
Product Management
Talking to people and understanding their needs to drive what to build, and why.
Operations
Designing systems and processes that scale, from ERP migrations to KPI dashboards.
Data & Analytics
Finding the signal in the noise and turning it into a decision to act on.
Japan & Language
Lived in Japan 4+ months, earned an AA in Japanese; fascinated by the place and craft.
Cycling & the Outdoors
Passionate about hiking and cycling. Raced XC, Enduro, and Downhill MTB.
0 MI · 0 FT CLIMBED
Trail_Log 13+ YRS
Where I’ve been
2026–Present
Founder
Rubrica · Early-stage AI startup
Taking Rubrica from a GSI grading fix to a product other instructors install. It ships as a signed, notarized macOS app now in multi-subject faculty pilots at Berkeley, has graded 850+ exams across 400+ students, and has a citable validation report on Zenodo.
2026–2026
Pathways Operations Manager
Amazon · Internship
The core project, a pick-optimization fix, came from walking the floor with operators, managers, and fleet, then checking the numbers; early data showed better policy compliance and faster picks. Also built a solo capacity simulation testing whether the facility could absorb a planned volume increase.
2024–2026
Graduate Student Instructor
UC Berkeley Haas · Microeconomics
Instruction for ~130 students; built Rubrica to replace a manual grading process, now validated across three subjects.
2024–2025
Teaching Assistant
UC Berkeley Haas · Data & Decisions
Built AI-assisted grading workflows and custom Excel rubrics that cut feedback turnaround by ~70%; developed Python notebooks and prompt-engineered tools to aggregate survey feedback at scale.
2020–2021
Business Process Consultant
Independent · Orange County, CA
Mapped legacy workflows and inventories for a $2M elastomer distributor, then led an ERP migration and change plan; authored AS/ISO-compliant service and sales SOPs, improving audit readiness and order-entry times.
2018–2020
Regional Sales Manager
The Flexitallic Group
Owned the California market for a $250M+ industrial leader; grew territory from $3.6M to $4.5M+ in under two years, implemented Salesforce, opened a new market segment.
2015–2018
Customer Success, Ops & Marketing Manager
Hercules OEM
Built a “units of workload” account model and live KPI dashboard; stood up the first marketing function supporting $700K in new-account sales; kept 100% retention through a 23% team reduction.
2014–2015
Account Manager, Inside Sales
Hercules OEM
Managed key military & aerospace accounts; learned mil-spec coding and technical-drawing analysis; built Excel tools that improved quotation pricing and service productivity.
2010–2014
Graphic Designer, Freelance
Rancho Santa Margarita, CA
Built a freelance design consultancy during rehabilitation from a serious injury; designed logos, brochures, and marketing materials for local SMEs across industries.
2007–2010
Buyer, Export
JAE Electronics
Managed ~$7M in Japanese aerospace accounts (JAXA, Ministry of Defense); redesigned RFQ-to-order workflows, increasing productivity 300%.
2003–2007
Founding Purchasing Manager
Rice Integration
Employee #5 at a networking-hardware startup; built purchasing, shipping, and inventory from scratch; drove 15–24% profit growth through supplier negotiations and a new quotation tool.
