Our New Network Engineer, Rick Conlee!

by ATEC Group / Tuesday, 08 March 2022 / Published in Employee Appreciation

The team at Atec Group has just gotten a little bit bigger! Rick Conlee, Atec Group’s new Network Engineer, is a much-welcomed addition to our team. Rick has two decades of experience in IT. His multi-paradigm technical career covers everything from legacy architecture to DevOps enabled startups. Rick has served as the CIO of a west coast venture-funded PaaS startup, contributed to Open Source projects, and is an expert in IT automation. Suffice to say, Rick has extensive experience and is ready to bring everything we do for our clients to the next level.

Five Questions for a 5-Star Recruit

We thought it’d be a good idea to do a quick mock interview with our newest 5-star recruit. That way you and all of our clients could get to know Rick without having us bill you for his time!

You’ve held a wide variety of roles in tech, can you tell us about your career journey?

I got into IT way back in 1999. I was 15 then, and I landed an internship at Albany Intl. Airport. Because I got my first exposure to IT so young it gave me a huge advantage over my peers. Especially since it gave me enterprise experience. Enterprise use cases in addition to the technology stacks commonly used in those types of environments put me on the fast track in my IT career.

After working at the Airport for 8 years I worked a few other jobs in the space before I decided to cut out on my own and start a Managed Service Provider (MSP) business. I ran my MSP for about 7 years, during which time I got exposure and later co-founded a venture-funded west coast SaaS/PaaS startup. I’ve done everything from desk-side support to designing a web-based product from the ground up, and all the way up to doing investor pitches.

Rick Conlee’s first day at Atec Group.

What are some of your favorite technologies that you’ve worked with?

When I am developing solutions for really specific problems – Linux is my go-to. Beyond that, I’ve really enjoyed working with various storage technologies and I really love tinkering so Raspberry Pi projects. Those really get me excited. Also, Machine Learning/AI are personal interests of mine. I spend a lot of time with Python whenever I get the chance. I’m always learning new technologies; I’m a lifelong learner who has had his hands in a lot of tech stacks and plan to have my hands in many more.

Favorite technical things to read?

I love to keep up with the latest security trends so Infosec is something I spend the most time reading about. Also, I read and have been published in 2600 Hacker Quarterly which highlights things that are evolving on the threat landscape.

Right now one of my favorite books is Kevin Mitnik’s “Ghost In The Wires”. It’s definitely a high-level technical read which is why I have re-read it a few times now. It’s an amazing story about a hacker’s journey from a phone phreaker to a respected security consultant.

What was a project that you really enjoyed working on?

My absolute favorite project that I’ve worked on was also my most successful. It was a full-scope IT refresh for Constellation Brands. At the time, they were the largest importer and producer of adult beverages in North America. And they tasked me with overseeing and executing a 2,500+ workstation, laptop, server, and network node deployment. During the deployment, they also asked me to provide some “air support” by fusing two large active directories together. That was quite the addition! But regardless, this project drew on the full body of all my experiences from working in enterprise IT settings, as well as some things I learned serving the SMB space. We had to roll out a lot of gear quickly and efficiently. I developed and executed a lot of repeatable processes, leveraged Microsoft’s SCCM and some other automation tools to get the job done.

What do you hope to accomplish at Atec Group?

I have two things that I want to execute. I want to leverage my knowledge of repeatable processes to help Atec scale service delivery, and I want to leverage my knowledge in places like security and automation to make us the premier vendor for Cybersecurity in the Capital Region.

Get in Touch with Rick

If you want to learn more about what Rick is like when he’s not being an IT superstar, feel free to check him out on his social pages or reach out to him via the contact info below.