A View Into My World

Welcome to my blog posted on the Proteus website. This has been a long time coming for me since I've been working towards this for almost a year now. Most of the delay has been on my side and I'm sure that it is a common story - lack of time and attention! Add to that some major delays to the launch of our new website and my desire to have this blog integrated there and you get a long wait. But it is finally here!! Now comes the hard part, right? Keeping it updated and fresh with content. I think (hope?) I am up to the task.

If you stay here and read this blog for any length of time you'll find that it will be a mixture of personal and business related content. I have a lot of divergent interests and I'm sure that I'll be waxing poetic about all of them from time to time.

I guess I should start with some background on who I am - a technical geek/engineer playing at being a businessman. Well, that's not 100% correct but part of my makeup keeps me from talking myself up so you'll need to rely on other folks who know me to fill in that picture for you. Of course, you can keep reading here as I post things and you'll probably get a sense of it yourself since there are so many aspects of my life these days. Here's a quick look and introduction to the portions of my life:

On the Technical Side: 

Right now I am first and foremost a router jock, but that was not always the case. Way back in the dark ages of the Internet I was playing with PCs and such while I was still in school. After I got out of college and while I was searching for what my real calling was in life would be I did some temp work in an office that turned into a real job. Most of it was as an office support person (which I think plays into why I have a lot of respect for those folks in a corporation) but since I had good computer skills I became the de facto PC support person for my little piece of the office. This endeared me to the "actual" IT staff there and I got to know them and what they did day to day to support our Novell environment. It occurred to me that I had an aptitude for that type of stuff so I began looking for a new job on a help desk. To my surprise, I received a call one day from a government contractor who asked me if I would be interested in being a server administrator and that they would provide all of the training I needed. Wow, where did I sign up?? ;-) I mean I was getting free training AND I was able to jump past the help desk and right into administration. 

So I began working as a contractor at the FDIC (yes, the government bank insurer) operating a Banyan VINES network running on a 4 MB Token Ring network. Yes, some long dead technologies but some really technically cool stuff. I did that for a few years and left when the contract was awarded to a new firm and I was transferred over due to my own choice since I felt I was worth more than the new contractor thought I was. Looking back on that I can see a lot of the thoughts I have about how a team member should work and be compensated. The change was good for me since I then moved to a contract position at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) - a state department off-shoot. While it was also a VINES network, we were running on Ethernet and while I was there I was exposed to the networking world of routing and switching. We installed some really old Cabletron MMAC switches (which I hated) and some Cisco 7000 routers (which I thought were cool) but the real transition in my life and career came when the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC. was being built and USAID was one of the agencies moving into that space. We got to install a brand new network from scratch and ended up putting in Cisco Catalyst 5000 switches (the original models with Sup I engines). That was when I went to a training class and my life was changed forever.

Based on the recommendation of our Cisco SEs I went to a switching class being held by Chesapeake Computer Consultants Inc. (CCCI). My instructor was this interesting guy named Tim Brown and something about him and the vibe I got while in class that week told me that Chesapeake would be a cool place to work. I initiated a conversation with Tim and he was very receptive. Shortly thereafter I was having interviews with them and, quite frankly, I was a little concerned. At the time I was barely a CCNP and I was interviewing at a company flush with CCIEs. Not only were my two technical interviews with CCIEs, but one of them was Terry Slattery - the owner of the company and CCIE #1026 (like #2 all time). I was in with him for over an hour and the conversation was on a number of different topics - I even got homework!!! I came to find out later that if you made it past 10-15 minutes with Terry then you were in a really good spot so it was a good omen. So, I got hired at Chesapeake and dove deep into the Cisco world. I still look back at that as a critical part of my career path and I will forever be grateful to Terry and all of the Chesapeake folks for the experience. It was a great technical place to be as I learned a TON and within a year I myself was a CCIE (#4803). Just as importantly, Terry showed me what a great company could be based on the way that it was run. The Chesapeake team all worked together, shared information, mentored each other, and worked hard to make the company itself stronger. There are lessons I learned there that have stuck with me to this day.

At the time I was convinced that Chesapeake was the last job I would ever have, but events did not turn out that way. Maybe one day I'll elaborate on some of the reasons why in a future post but for now I'll just say hat Terry had left and he folks who were then running the company didn't do such a good job. They went through some tough times and went into bankruptcy but I was glad when they were reborn into the Chesapeake Netcraftsmen, and I am happy to say that they are doing very well these days. For me and a number of my co-workers there came a time in August 2000 that it was time to abandon the ship. A large number of people went to Verizon (which at the time had a small regional IP network) and another group of folks (myself included) went to Juniper Networks.

At the end of 2000, Juniper had just released the M160 router and had 3 router models. I joined onto the Education Services team with a few of my Chesapeake friends (including Tim Brown) and started preparing to teach what we called the "bundle". It was the one and only training class that Juniper had at the time. I was a really exiting time to be at Juniper as the industry was growing lie crazy (the bust was just around the corner) and we were growing as a team. I got my JNCIE (#14) in mid-2001 which made me equally certified (and certifiable) in both the Juniper and Cisco worlds. During my 5 years there I spent time delivering classes, developing classes (the AJNR and APOL classes used today are largely what I wrote many, many years ago), building the certification program, and integrating new companies like Unishpere and Netscreen. I also spent over a year as a Resident Engineer (onsite Juniper body in a customer network). That gave me a really great level of experience on the operational aspects of networking. I also got to help design and implement a nationwide IP/MPLS network, which was just cool to be a part of. As 2004 began winding down I was looking for something new to do and I was interested in getting back into education in some way. At the time (unfortunately), there was an unwritten policy at Juniper that you needed to work in an office and that you needed to be doing something related to what that office was doing. I am happy to see that this went by the wayside a few years ago since it never made any sense to me whatsoever. Anyway, what that meant for me was going back into the Juniper education team, joining JTAC full time, or joining the sales team as an SE. All of those would have been fun to work on of them really "spoke" to me and got me really excited. It was about that time that an interesting business opportunity opened up and I jumped at the chance that was offered to me. Since it really involved very little new techie stuff I'll spent more time below talking about it. 

What this all means to my blog is that I will occasionally wax poetic about technical topics and other industry things in my posts.

The Business Component 

I began being interested in being a business owner and an entrepreneur when I was in high school. It was at that time that my father was retiring from the Navy and was looking into getting some type of a franchise business started. We ended up owning a Minuteman Press franchise in Falls Church, VA, and I think that my life was forever changed. As this was now the way that the family was going to survive I think that I felt some level of commitment to helping out where I could. I don't recall ever being "forced" into helping out at the shop but I'm sure that my parents were thankful that I was willing. The prospect of building something and being in charge appealed to me and I spent summers and evenings helping out where I could. When I went out of state to school (Penn State) I was thankful I did not have to fork over the tuition checks and could instead enjoy the assistance of my parents and the printing shop. In return, I felt that it was a fair trade that when I was home from school that I was working at the shop. In fact, most times my school vacations were also my parent's vacations!! I look back on that experience now and I see a lot of lessons that I've been able to apply in my technical jobs and again in my own businesses. How I approach customer service, employees, compensation, and "doing it right" are all traits I can trace back to the shop. As I was getting out of college, my parents sold the printing shop so I off to find something else to do with my life. As you can see above I ended up doing some technology things but the "bug" of being a business owner never really died out. So, when the opportunity presented itself in 2004 I jumped at the chance.

At the end of 2004, I joined up with some fellow engineers as a partner with iPath Technologies. We had all known each other in various ways and forms for the last 5-6 years and it was an intriguing opportunity. Juniper had just purchased Netscreen and along with it came a vendor channel and training partners. The problem was that all of those training partners were security focused on the Netscreen product lines. Juniper was looking for router-based training partners to help them grow and the opportunity was there, so iPath began to fill that niche. We grew later into consulting work and even a little product resell and in mid-2006 we were bring courted by some companies who were looking to buy us out. We ended up doing a deal with Solunet, who was a VAR based out of Florida. They were largely a company focused on product resale and iPath was looked at as a way to bring in high-level services to the company. As the deal closed, we officially became iPath Services and we were left as a subsidiary company to Solunet to retain some of the brand value iPath had built up in the proceeding two years. At time went on, my partners left for other opportunities and I was left standing as the company decided to close its doors in Sept of 2008. I had decided that our business model was a good one and that it really hadn't had the chance to prove itself out yet. I also knew that I was feeling the strong urge to be "on my own" again after having been an employee the last two years. So, I immediately called my friend Doug Marschke (who I worked with at Juniper and iPath) and told him what was happening. Doug had left iPath at the end of 2007 to start up a small training group and he had 3 folks by the time Solunet was dissolving. It only took us 15-20 minutes to decide that instead of cooperating/competing that it made much more sense to formally be one company. In short, we were hoping that one plus one equaled three and in that short discussion the concept behind Proteus was born.

In the last 15 months I have become an avid student of business management, finance, operations, culture, etc. I can't seem to get enough of it and I'm always looking out for more of it. I read daily and I split my time roughly in half between books and business magazines. Some of what I've found has been helpful to put words and concrete concepts to the thoughts I've always had in my gut about how to run a company. Some of it has taken me beyond things which I've always done and (hopefully) elevated them to new heights. Some of it has opened up my eyes to things which I never knew. All of it makes me a better businessman and a better person (I hope anyway) and a lot of it will make it's way to these pages at some point or another.

Flipping to my Personal Life

I think that I lead a pretty boring life these days but I do know that perception is always in the eyes of the beholder. So, there will be times when I talk about things here which are not related to my work (technology or business). I live in the Northern Virginia area very close to Dulles airport. We settled in this area in 1980 while my father was still in the Navy. After moving every 2-3 years staying in one spot was a bit weird for a while but I got used to it and came back to NOVA after my time at Penn State to settle permanently. I have two adorable little boys ages 5 and 2. The older one is in Kindergarden this year while the younger one is still in pre-school/daycare. They definitely keep me young, make me laugh a lot, make me frustrated at times, and generally remind me daily to look at things differently.

I'm not sure that I really have any hobbies, per se, but I do have things which interest me a lot. I am addicted to puzzles - mostly crosswords, sudoku, and kakuro. Since I fly a ton for work I always have some type of a puzzle close by to make the flights do faster. I'm also big into football and NASCAR, which has definitely rubbed off on my sons. The older one reenacts moments from games we've watched, has uniforms from both the Bears (my team) and the Eagles (his recent choice), and knows the logos/colors/names of all the teams in the league. The little one is catching on but he mainly just runs around the house shouting "Go Bears". It's really cute! On the racing side I root for the 88 car and attend both races each year at the Richmond track. It's quite a tailgate production so I'm sure that you'll get to see some pictures before too long.

I guess I'll wrap it up now as I don't want to let all of my thoughts escape on the first post, but hopefully you've now got a sense of what to expect here. See you soon.