Tony’s Bio

Tony grew up in the small town of Eskridge Kansas where he still has many ties. Ever since he was little he was always technically inclined. When he was young he took apart anything he could get his hands on to see how it worked.

He started programming BASIC on an 8088 when his family got their first computer in 1989. He still has this computer. As he continued working with computers he taught himself several programming and markup languages including C++, SGML, and HTML.

At the age of seven he became a 4-H member. As a Kansas 4-H member he did not participate in any livestock projects. Instead he was drawn to projects such as rocketry, small engines, and leadership. As Tony grew older he discovered he was quite skilled working on small gas engines and started his own small business repairing them. He ran this company through college.

While in college Tony continued his technical inclination by pursuing degrees in technology and business at Kansas State University (K-State). He was also involved in the college’s chapter of ACM and served as a club officer for the organization. Tony was also an active member of the K-State Student Governing Association (SGA), National Association of College and University Residence Halls (NACURH), K-State Gamers Board, and the High Power Rocketry club. He also had a part time job as a child care specialist for the local YMCA. In addition Tony was part of the media relations support team for the first Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer flight around the world that was based at the university.

Tony graduated from K-State with degrees in Computer Systems Technology, Technology Management with a minor in business, Web Development Technology, and several others associates degrees. He continued on at K-State where he completed course work for a Masters Certificate in Business Administration.

In March 2005 Tony started work at EAGLE Software in Salina Kansas. His first task at Eagle was to figure out how to efficiently backup Virtual Machines from VMware ESX 2.0/2.5. This was Tony’s first major exposure to virtualization. From that time on he has been heavily involved in virtualization, installing hundreds of virtualized environments for many SMB’s as well as enterprise organizations.

In early 2012 Tony was named a Dell TechCenter Rockstar for his involvement in social media. In April of 2012 he also received the honor of being designated a VMware vExpert. He continues to hold the VMware vExpert recognition.

Tony joined VCE in late 2012 as a solutions architect specializing in end user computing (EUC) solutions. While working as a solution architect he was instrumental in designing solutions for several Fortune 500 companies and many other well known organizations. He was also instrumental in creating new EUC and management products. During his tenure at VCE it became one of the fastest growing technology companies ever.

In mid 2014 Tony joined EMC as a Sr. Tech Marketing Manager. In this role he helped develop and create collateral around EUC & EMC solutions. He has also been active in several projects under development around EUC.

At VMworld 2015 Tony was part of the EMC EUC Solutions team that announced Federation End-User Computing. This was the first solutions launch Tony had helped to drive. He considers this both one of his biggest successes and one of his biggest growth experiences, as the solution was terminated seven months after it’s announcement in favor of a different direction.

In 2016 Tony was named part of the NVIDIA GRID Community Advisors Program, a program he is still an active member of today. He was also part of the merger creating the largest privately controlled technology company in recorded history when Dell and EMC came together to become Dell Technologies.

Following the merger Tony moved to the Dell EMC Ready Solutions team. As part of that team he worked on the Ready Bundle for Virtualization team, the Ready Systems for HPC team, and the Ready Systems for VDI team. In June 2018, Tony returned to working on converged infrastructure.

In his spare time Tony is conjuring up new ideas that leverage GPU’s for things other than their intended uses.

Tony currently lives in Salina Kansas with his wife and works remotely for Dell EMC.