I’m excited to announce we have hired a Director of Web Services (a position which morphed just slightly from the original title of Sr. Systems Administrator). Below is a short interview with the latest addition to the Backblaze family: Kirk.
Where are you originally from? Why did you move here?
I was born in Washington D.C. and lived in Maryland for my first 37 years. In 1987 I got an opportunity to come out here to work for one year and I could bring the family. We fell in love with this area then but after the one year we returned to Maryland. In 1997 we moved out here after I got sick of the weather and pollen every year. It was a big move for us and since I was the main driver for the move I had to answer all the complaints about why we moved, etc. Fun!
Favorite place you’ve traveled?
My wife and I love driving trips and we have spent several vacations on the road. We drove on what is left of route 66 from LA out to Texas taking every side road and that was an awesome trip. We also drove to Mount Rushmore, seeing that awesome site. I love to drive. It represents true freedom, and boy, what a great big country we have!
Where do you go to think?
Driving! I figure things out while driving.
What is your personal mantra?
“I feel happy, I feel healthy, I feel terrific” I know its weird but I went to this seminar once that said if you said this out loud five times in a row daily it would make you feel better. Son-of-a-gun, it works!
Were you always interested in technology?
YES! I grew up in the age of the astronaut in the ’60s and when I was a little kid that’s all I wanted to be. The space program was everything to me. I used to rig up my bedroom and turn it into a space capsule with any gadget I could find. A transistor radio, and an old cassette recorder made up my command console. I would take a dining room chair and flip it on its back up against the bed so I could lay with my head on the floor and legs up on the bed with my technology besides me making a “capsule.” As I got older and began college, my first job and where I stayed the next 18 years was working at Goddard Space Flight Center for a contractor for NASA. Being around all this customer hardware and computers that filled whole rooms was so cool. I learned to operate all the equipment for the LANDSAT ground system. I went on to support other missions in various positions, even working on a space shuttle mission at the JPL in Pasadena.
Of what achievement are you most proud?
Work/technical achievement: I wrote a paper called the “System Test Risk Assessment Measure” which I presented at International Test Conferences and it won the best paper in the computer sciences category where I worked. It was the first and only paper on QA ever to win the award in the computer science category.
Personal: I have suffered from being overweight my entire life. Finally at 325 lbs I began to look after myself and work out, losing 60 lbs. And I continue to workout four times a week.
