Thirty years in, still curious about how it breaks.
I started fixing PCs in an internet cafe in 1995. I've spent every year since then somewhere in the stack — desktops, then UNIX, then Windows servers, then the virtualization and automation layers on top of them.
The Short Version
From apprentice to engineer
The apprenticeship at Cyber Rock Internet Cafe was the kind of job where you learned by taking things apart: repairs, upgrades, installations, troubleshooting, and — because it was the mid-nineties — hand-written HTML. A PC repair and sales role at Cameron Rowe Computers followed.
In 1998 I joined McKesson doing general PC support in a Windows NT, Novell and Windows 3.1 environment. I stayed sixteen years. In that time I moved into UNIX system administration on IBM AIX, ran a thousand-page internal website as webmaster, took on desktop and network responsibility for over 2,000 machines across four states, and finally moved into Windows systems engineering — building and supporting servers nationwide.
Since November 2015 I've been at Experian as Lead System Administrator, working remotely. I lead the Windows, Citrix and VMware support teams and serve as the primary Citrix and VMware subject matter expert for North America — supporting servers and virtual environments across North America, APAC and LATAM.
Much of the recent work has been automation and migration: server patching and reporting through BMC TrueSight with NSH and PowerShell, and moving Citrix into the Azure and AWS public clouds using Terraform, VS Code and Bitbucket.
What I Believe
A few working principles
Every system fails eventually. The engineering question isn't whether — it's what happens next, and whether anyone has to be woken up for it.
If I'm going to do it more than a few times, it becomes a script. Consistency beats speed, and scripts don't get tired at the end of a change window.
Process documentation isn't overhead. It's the difference between a team that can absorb a departure and one that can't.
Requirements are usually a description of a solution someone already picked. Understanding the underlying problem generally produces a better system — and room to grow into.
Training & Certifications
Formal training along the way
A selection of the coursework behind the hands-on work — vendor training rather than a collection of alphabet soup.
AIX v4 Basics · Administration · Advanced Administration · TCP/IP · Performance Management
VMware ESXi v5.0
Symantec NetBackup v7.5 · NetBackup Advanced Administration v7.5
Windows NT Server v4 Fundamentals · Microsoft IIS 4.0 · Windows 2000, XP Pro and ME introductions · Office 2000 coursework
HTML 4.01 Level 1 & 2 · DHTML Cross-browser Techniques Parts 1 & 2
Advanced Troubleshooting, Maintaining & Upgrading PCs
Behavioral Interviewing · Core Skills for Building Commitment · Time Management
Niceville High School — High School Diploma
Want the detail?
The full chronological record — every role, every environment, every stack I've had my hands in.