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 (now defunct) novelty Twitter bots, their Bluesky ports, and Slack weather bot. I'm also into 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 nonprofit community theatre organization. After a 12-year hiatus from playing an on-stage role, I played the lead (title) role of a local history production in June, 2023 and am playing the lead role in an early-October (2023) production of A Month of Sundays.

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. I also enjoy evangelizing Certbot for the automation of SSL certificates and promoting the idea of "embracing laziness as the driver of innovation."

Lastly, I am the creator of the (sadly retired) Twitter MMSMOA Retweet Bot (@mmsmoabot), which seemed like something fun and frivolous to make in advance of MMS 2022! The bot was decommissioned after MMS MOA 2023 due to Twitter's changes around API access. Though it's gone, I still love to talk about it and/or share one of the remaining bot stickers with you!