AI Builder · Owner-Operator · MBA in Business Analytics

I build AI that runs my business.

I taught myself to run AI that prices freight, tracks my books, and powers my MBA, and to run it privately, on my own machine, without handing my data to anyone. Now I help small businesses do the same.

Brownsville, TX · Bilingual (English / Spanish) · MBA in Business Analytics, 2027 · Building toward Fractional Chief AI Officer and AI-consulting work. Also open to Data / BI roles.

Carlos Martinez Jr., headshot
My Story

I didn't learn data in a classroom first. I learned it in a truck.

I've been behind the wheel since 2007, when I earned my CDL Class A.

For years I ran under my own authority, and because I'd always loved Excel, I started building what I'd call dashboards today: simple sheets that told me exactly what each load would pay after fuel and costs. That instinct to measure everything never left. In 2023 I moved my freight over to Landstar to cut the paperwork and focus on the driving and the building.

Then AI showed up, and I leaned all the way in. I taught myself where to go, how to code, and how to actually ship things. My crude spreadsheets became professional tools that show me what works and what doesn't, and I expand them every single day. Every problem I solve opens the door to the next idea, and chasing that next idea is the part I genuinely enjoy.

That's who I am: an operator who builds. I've spent 20+ years leading teams (a 20-year Army career, a 40+ member platoon) and grew my freight business from $100K to $300K in revenue with data-driven decisions. Now, with an MBA in Business Analytics, I'm pointing all of it in one direction: helping other small businesses put AI to work the way I did, as a practical tool for real money decisions, not a buzzword.

How I Help

The full power of AI, without giving your data away.

Most small business owners know AI is powerful. One thing stops them: privacy. They don't want their client lists, financials, or proprietary work leaving their hands and landing in a public tool they don't control.

I get it, because I solved it for my own business. I run AI that keeps sensitive data on my own computer. You get the full power of AI without giving your information away.

Build practical AI tools

Around the real work you already do, not a science project.

Keep your data yours

Set up so private information stays private.

Multiply your output

The way I multiplied mine, one workflow at a time.

What I've Built

Proof, not promises.

07 Newest Build

Flatbed Load Optimizer: The Load Plan Before a Single Pallet Moves

A web tool for shippers. The dock manager types in the order, picks the trailer, and gets back the complete load plan in seconds: a to-scale trailer diagram, the exact loading sequence for the forklift crew, strap counts by row, and weight and height checks, all before the first pallet leaves the rack.

Why it matters: I didn't find this problem in a dataset. I found it standing at the dock, watching a crew work out my load in real time. Nineteen years of flatbed experience, encoded into software a shipper can run. That's the kind of AI work I do: real operational pain, turned into a tool.
Load Optimizer order form with a real roofing-materials demo load entered
Step 1: The shipper enters the order. This is a real load I hauled: 12 pallets and 47 loose rubber-roofing rolls, plus this dock's own spacing rules.
Load Optimizer plan page showing legal checks, top view, and side view of the trailer
Step 2: The plan comes back. Top and side views of the trailer, 32,595 lb placed and centered, 12 straps specified, every legality check passed.
Load Optimizer step-by-step loading sequence for the forklift crew
Step 3: The crew gets a numbered loading sequence, nose to rear, bottom layer first. No guesswork at the dock.

Where the idea came from

I was picking up a flatbed load of roofing materials and watched the dock crew figure out the arrangement on the fly: what rides at the nose, what stacks on what, where the loose rolls go. All of that knowledge lived in people's heads. Get it wrong and you find out late, at the scale, at the strap check, or when freight comes back damaged. As the driver, I'm the one who straps it and hauls it legal, so I know exactly what a good load looks like.

What I built

A packing engine that knows the freight (pallet sizes, weights, what can bear weight, what crushes) and the rules of the road (payload limits, 8'6" height, center of gravity, strap working-load limits). It packs the trailer the way a good dock crew would: crush-sensitive foam at the nose, pyramid stacks of loose rolls braced at the rear, and the front row strapped as the backstop that braces everything behind it. Custom items can be added on the fly, and 34 automated tests keep the engine honest.

Why a shipper would pay for it

Every reload is forklift time, dock time, and driver detention. Every overweight or over-height surprise is a fine or a late delivery. This tool moves those mistakes from the dock, where they're expensive, to the screen, where they're free. It's the same playbook I used on my own business: find the spot where hours and dollars leak, then build the software that plugs it.

01

Hot Spots / Top Lanes Dashboard

A market-intelligence dashboard built off load-board data that shows where freight is hot and where to position for the next backhaul.

Why it matters: It's the tool I wished existed when I started driving. I built it for myself, and it guides where I actually point the truck.
02

Truck Report Pro

A revenue and expense tracking system I built for my own trucking books, with a Google Sheet, Apps Script, and an iPhone shortcut all wired together.

Why it matters: It replaced a $20-30/month app with software I own and control. Proof I ship production tools that pay for themselves on day one.
03

Broker Pricing Tool

A pricing engine that reads free U.S. freight market data and tells a broker what to charge to move a load: rate per mile, fuel surcharge, and margin.

Why it matters: It turns messy public rate data into one confident number. The kind of decision support a business actually pays for.
04

Freight Mode Optimizer

For an MBA project I analyzed roughly 6 million shipments across air, rail, truck, and parcel, then determined the smartest mode by distance and shipment value.

Why it matters: Big data, real logistics stakes. Proof I can take millions of rows and turn them into a clear recommendation.
05

Carlos-HQ: My Multi-Agent Operating System

A team of AI agents that power my MBA work. They hunt down credible articles and documents for my research, so my assignments are built on the most accurate, current data. They also turn my reading into MP3s I can listen to while I'm driving, and I ask questions about what I'm reading through a chatbot from the road.

Why it matters: The research and the reading would have taken 10x longer without it.
06

Sales CSV Cleaner & Report Builder

A Python tool that turns a messy point-of-sale export into clean data and a ready-to-read sales report with a single command. It standardizes mismatched dates and prices, drops duplicates and broken rows, and accounts for every row so nothing disappears silently.

Why it matters: It replaces an afternoon of manual spreadsheet cleanup with a few seconds of work, and produces the same trustworthy numbers every time. The quiet kind of automation a business runs every week.
Before and after: the raw messy CSV export on top, the cleaned CSV below
Step 1: Before and after. On top, the raw export: three date formats, prices as $1,299.00 and 1299, a row with no order ID, a blank row, a zero-quantity row, and a duplicate. Below, the same data cleaned and sorted, with a computed line total on every row.
Terminal showing the one-command run and the first rows of the cleaned CSV
Step 2: One command. 100 rows read, 88 kept, 8 skipped, 4 duplicates removed, and the cleaned file comes out tidy with a computed line total.
Generated sales report with revenue by product and month, top customers, and data quality section
Step 3: The report. Revenue by product and month, top customers, and a data-quality section that explains every single skipped row. Nothing disappears silently.

What it is

A lightweight Python tool that takes the raw, messy CSV a point-of-sale system exports and turns it into three usable files. It runs on the Python already built into your computer, so there is nothing to install and no monthly fee.

How it works

You run one line and point it at your export. It standardizes every date format, strips the dollar signs and commas off prices, tidies product names, removes duplicate orders, and pulls out broken rows (missing IDs, bad dates, zero prices). Then it hands you back a clean CSV, a plain-English report (revenue by product, by month, and top customers), and a machine-readable JSON.

Why it saves time

What used to be an afternoon of copy-paste and find-and-replace becomes seconds. Every row is accounted for (kept plus skipped plus duplicates removed always equals rows read), and the report tells you exactly why anything was dropped, so you can trust the revenue figure. Build it once, reuse it forever.

Let's talk.

Want to put AI to work in your business, or talk about a data role? I'm easy to reach.

Brownsville, TX (Rio Grande Valley) · Open to remote