
A Michigan Tech student found his way into Palantir and wondered why the route was so hard to see. Garrett Lord built Handshake around that question. Now he is taking its network into the AI economy.

For more than four decades, the Michigan technologist has steered Scientel from supply-chain software to big-data databases and private AI systems. His career is a study in refusing to let a durable company become a museum piece.

A six-hour wait in a Greek parking lot sent an early Handshake employee looking for the software behind travel advice. He found a profession buried in tabs, copy-paste and admin - then started building its operating system.