A year ago last week (7/15) I joined SolidFire after 2 decades in the channel thanks to Dave Cahill. The journey started with Dave and I chatting about candidates for a new Tech Solutions team he would be building at SolidFire.  CRN ran an article here and listed me in top 100 people to know here. I’m not even sure what to say about that…. Humbled and honored for sure! Immediately I discovered the joy of working within the newly formed Tech Solutions group #bestjobIeverhad (reference to the phrase in the movie Fury). I would be surrounded with bright minds like

• Aaron Delp (vExpert, OpenStack guru, Cloudcaster, soon to be leader of Solution Architects)
• Jeramiah Dooley (should be a CTO, greatest smartass I know)
• Josh Atwell (king of automation, PowerShell, Devops, and bourbon)
• Aaron Patten (VDI/DaaS, master of Jedi mind tricks, and overall virtualization savant)
• Chris Merz (MongoDB, Zen master and other platform guru)
• Chad Smith (Networking and hardware guru, average mountain biker)
• Jeff Wright (Oracle genius, likes biking spandex)

Working with this kind of team has been a great process in professional growth and opportunity. I’ve been able to produce key briefings and presence at industry events (VMworld, PEX, Citrix Summit, Microsoft Ignite), present/panel at VMUG’s, internally plan, influence, and lead key directions, messaging, integration efforts, GTM, and development of Alliance and channel ecosystems.

Special thanks to the one and only Rawlinson!  You made magic happen for me bro.

Big thanks to all the key people at SolidFire for a kick ass year! (long list, Oscars style)

• The entire Tech Solutions Team (Jeramiah, Josh, Aaron, Aaron, Chris, Chad, Ed, Steve + Andy Roberts) + Andy Banta!!
• Dave Cahill – #fakeituntilyoumakeit #DFIU “good job”
• Dave Wright – just. briliiant. always! #coolestCEOIknow
• Kelsi Cooke (free ranger), Jessica Haze (spirit animal? 🙂
• The one and only Amy Lewis!!!!
• McClain Buggle
• Pratik Chavda!!
• Leadership – RJ Weigel, James Whitemore, Jay Prassl, Tim Pitcher, Dan Berg, Brian McCloskey
• Channels – Gregg Machon, Mark Conley, all the CAM’s, Gene Kussman
• Marketing – James Jackson (Chef), Kelly Boekman, Doug Chamberlain, Ralph, Lara
• Engineering – Adam Carter, Dave Barr, Mike Moore, Reese Lloyd, John Pelletier, Eric Wolf, Derek Leslie
• International – John Rollason, Kris Day, Martin Cooper, Phil Hooker, Ian, Paul, Okada-san, etc
• Sales – All the great field sales and engineer people (especially Bill McKenna, Sean Johnson, Dean Trossen, John Broncatto, Rob Klusman, Demetrios, Kyle, etc.)
• HR – Eric!!
• all who I missed…. if I only had enough time to think through all the many people!!