About Gordon

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I was born and raised in Scotland, a country that has always produced more than its fair share of engineers, inventors, builders, and problem solvers. It was a place where hard work was expected, self-reliance was respected, and practical skills mattered.

I did not follow a conventional path. Academic success came later in life, not at the beginning. Like many young people, I left school without a clear roadmap and entered the workforce through an apprenticeship. What I learned there proved every bit as valuable as anything I would later learn in a classroom.

The Scotland I grew up in taught lessons that stayed with me throughout my career. If something broke, you fixed it. If you wanted something, you worked for it. If a door closed, you found another way through. Those principles became the foundation of everything that followed.

Over the years, that journey took me from apprenticeships and engineering studies to Silicon Valley, where I founded MiCOM Labs and built one of the world's leading wireless compliance testing laboratories. Yet many of the values that shaped the company were formed long before California, long before entrepreneurship, and long before business plans.

They were formed in Scotland.

Against the Giants is, in many ways, the story of how those early lessons carried me from a small Scottish town to competing against some of the largest organizations in the world.

My engineering career did not begin with a grand plan. It began with curiosity, persistence, and a willingness to learn.

After starting my working life as an apprentice, I gradually discovered that engineering offered something I found deeply satisfying: the opportunity to solve real problems. The more complex the challenge, the more interested I became. What started as a job evolved into a profession and eventually into a lifelong passion.

Unlike many engineers, I did not take a direct route into the field. My formal education came later, alongside work, family responsibilities, and the practical realities of everyday life. Earning an engineering degree and ultimately achieving Chartered Engineer status required determination, discipline, and more than a few late nights. The journey taught me that capability is rarely determined by where you start; it is determined by how willing you are to keep moving forward.

Throughout my career, I worked across a broad range of technologies, industries, and disciplines. Those experiences eventually led me into the world of wireless communications, regulatory compliance, and product certification. It was a field that combined engineering, problem solving, international standards, and business strategy in equal measure.

Over time, I came to understand that successful engineering is about much more than technology. It is about understanding systems, identifying constraints, and finding practical solutions where others see obstacles. That perspective would later become one of the foundations upon which MiCOM Labs was built.

Looking back, my engineering career was never simply about designing products or passing tests. It was about learning how things work, understanding why they fail, and discovering how to make them better. Those lessons shaped not only my professional life, but also my approach to business, leadership, and innovation.

By the late 1990s, my career had taken me into the rapidly evolving world of wireless communications. The technology was changing quickly, standards were emerging, and the industry was becoming increasingly global. Much of the innovation was happening in one place: Silicon Valley.

The move to California was never part of a long-term plan. It was an opportunity that emerged at the right moment, and one that Shirley and I decided to embrace. Like many significant decisions in life, it involved equal parts excitement, uncertainty, and risk.

Arriving in Silicon Valley was both inspiring and humbling. I found myself surrounded by some of the world's most innovative companies, talented engineers, and ambitious entrepreneurs. New ideas moved quickly. Technologies that seemed experimental one year were becoming industries the next. It was an environment that rewarded expertise, adaptability, and a willingness to challenge conventional thinking.

Professionally, the move accelerated everything. It exposed me to international markets, emerging wireless technologies, regulatory systems, and business opportunities on a scale I had never previously experienced. It also reinforced an important lesson: innovation is not limited to large organizations. In fact, many of the most important advances come from small teams willing to move faster than their larger competitors.

Silicon Valley also revealed something else. Behind the success stories, billion-dollar valuations, and industry headlines were the same principles I had learned growing up in Scotland: hard work, persistence, technical competence, and the ability to solve difficult problems. Technology may have changed, but those fundamentals had not.

Looking back, the move to Silicon Valley was one of the defining decisions of my life. It expanded my horizons, challenged my assumptions, and ultimately created the conditions that would lead to the founding of MiCOM Labs. It was the point where decades of engineering experience met an environment that rewarded innovation, creating opportunities I could never have imagined when I first began my apprenticeship in Scotland. 

MiCOM Labs was founded in 2002 with a simple idea: provide world-class wireless testing and certification services with a level of expertise, responsiveness, and customer focus that larger organizations often struggled to match.

The company began with a one-page business plan, a small facility in Pleasanton, California, and a determination to prove that technical excellence could compete with size. At the time, the wireless industry was expanding rapidly, and manufacturers faced increasing challenges navigating regulatory requirements, certification programs, and global market access.

From the beginning, MiCOM Labs took a different approach. Rather than trying to be everything to everyone, we focused on becoming exceptionally good at a specific set of disciplines. Our philosophy was simple: understand the technology, understand the regulations, and help customers solve problems quickly and efficiently.

Competing against organizations many times our size required more than hard work. It required innovation. Over the years, MiCOM Labs invested heavily in automation, process improvement, and technical expertise, allowing us to deliver faster turnaround times, greater consistency, and a level of service that larger competitors often found difficult to match.

As the wireless industry evolved from Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to increasingly complex connected technologies, MiCOM Labs grew alongside it. The company became recognized internationally for its expertise in wireless compliance, regulatory approvals, and certification testing, supporting manufacturers ranging from start-ups to some of the world's most respected technology companies.

What makes me most proud, however, is not the growth of the business itself. It is the reputation that was built along the way. MiCOM Labs succeeded because customers trusted us to solve difficult problems, provide honest answers, and help them bring innovative products to market.

The story of MiCOM Labs is ultimately a story about expertise, persistence, and innovation. It is proof that a small, focused team can compete successfully against much larger organizations when it is willing to think differently, move faster, and never stop learning. 

For most of my career, I never imagined I would write a book.

I have always been more comfortable building things than writing about them. My focus was engineering, solving problems, helping customers, and growing a business. The stories that make up a career tend to accumulate quietly, one challenge and one decision at a time, without much thought given to recording them.

Over the years, however, I came to appreciate that the most valuable lessons are often the ones that never appear in textbooks. They are learned through experience, setbacks, risks, mistakes, and perseverance. They are passed from one generation to the next through stories rather than formal instruction.

Against the Giants began as an effort to preserve those stories. It is the account of a journey that started in Scotland, passed through engineering, education, and Silicon Valley, and ultimately led to the founding of MiCOM Labs. It is also a record of the people who made that journey possible, especially my family and, above all, my wife Shirley, whose support and belief never wavered during the most challenging periods.

The book is not intended to be a business manual, although there are lessons about entrepreneurship, leadership, negotiation, and innovation throughout its pages. Nor is it simply a memoir. At its heart, it is a story about resilience, self-reliance, and the determination to keep moving forward when others believe you should stop.

If there is one message I hope readers take away, it is that success rarely comes from having the most resources, the biggest team, or the easiest path. More often, it comes from persistence, curiosity, hard work, and the willingness to keep turning the handle one more time than everyone else.

Most importantly, I hope these stories preserve a few lessons worth passing on. Lessons for my family, for future entrepreneurs and engineers, and for anyone who has ever been told that something couldn't be done.