I have over 25 years of broad IT experience including fleet/desktop systems management (Windows and Mac), server administration (Linux and Windows), and web/native applications architecture and development. Theatre nerd, mustache aficionado, storyteller, technology grief counselor, governance/process geek, diplomat, father of two, and jack of many trades.

My last ten+ years have been spent in higher education within the University of Minnesota system. I manage a system campus workstation and server fleet as a consumer of/in partnership with our system-wide IT service offerings ("not a ConfigMan admin, but play one on TV"). I am also a Windows and Linux server administrator and automation engineer for data transport and business operations between enterprise services and tertiary systems and/or end users.

On the side I like to fiddle with code and periodically Make Things. On Github (github.com/zaskem) I have source for my novelty Twitter bots and Slack weather bot. I also enjoy evangelizing Certbot for the automation of SSL certificates. I'm also into some 3D printing and home automation stuff; when I'm not doing any of those things (or regular family/life stuff), I also serve as the president of a local community theatre.

At the office I try to lead the change to a more DevOps based mindset. "Automate All The Things," "Fail Often, Recover Quickly," or even "Hey, Could We At Least Script This Out?" are things I might be overheard sputtering.

Lastly, I am the creator of the Twitter MMSMOA Retweet Bot (@mmsmoabot), which seemed like something fun and frivolous to make in advance of MMS 2022! The bot is still humming along for MMS 2023 (at least until Twitter decides to dismantle "free" API access), and I would love to talk about it and/or share a bot sticker with you! And just in time for MMS 2023 I have a super limited edition 3d printed bot tchotchke I'll give away to folks until they're gone. Twitter might not live on, but the bot memorabilia will!