Steve Michaels is a leader in digital government, payments, and software innovation. As CEO and founder of Breakline, he helps states modernize how residents, visitors, and businesses interact with government—designing platforms that make complex services feel simple, secure, and intuitive. Under his leadership, Breakline has grown from a boutique digital consultancy into a leading product and technology company behind enterprise-scale systems for licensing, grants and loans, tax and revenue, and integrated payment experiences.
Steve is a trusted partner to public-sector organizations navigating modernization of legacy systems, implementation of multi-tenant payment engines, and rollout of citizen-centric portals. His work spans secure payment orchestration, hosted checkout experiences, tokenization, and APIs that connect core government systems with modern cloud platforms.
Before founding Breakline, Steve spent more than a decade as a technology entrepreneur and consultant delivering leading-edge software and Internet applications, including SaaS-based low-latency adtech platforms, real-time trading systems, lead generation engines, and IoT solutions using smart sensor networks. He also brings deep experience in next-generation consumer banking applications that have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in value for top financial brands.
Steve received an MBA from the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, an MSE from The University of Texas at Austin, and a BSME from Rutgers University. He lives in Jersey City with his wife, Regan, and their two daughters.
