About
25+ years helping businesses make better technology decisions
In the mid-90s, I was in a biology PhD program at Yale. I used computers to model patterns and test them in the lab. On the side, I built websites for healthcare groups on campus.
The side work took off. Healthcare groups needed to move resources online. I built sites for organizations serving paralyzed veterans, MS patients, and migraine sufferers. In 1998, I started Biomedical Computer Consulting to keep up.
I ran BMCC until 2000. Online businesses were growing fast. They all needed infrastructure support. I followed the demand.
Starting rackAID
Rackshack, a Texas company, sold cheap dedicated servers with no support. I saw the gap. They handled servers. I handled support. In 2001, I started raqAID to help startups get online. When Rackshack added more server types, raqAID became rackAID in 2002. Same company, new focus.
I partnered with SoftLayer, PhoenixNAP, ThePlanet, and EV1Servers as a support provider. I ran my own servers in NYC datacenters until 2006. Then I started working directly with small and mid-sized businesses, providing IT management and MSP services.
By 2008, rackAID had grown. I built a team, including staff in India who stayed with me for 15 years. We expanded across the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, Central and South America. We handled everything from routine maintenance to emergency response, around the clock.
Adapting to change
I was late to the cloud. Dedicated servers worked for our clients, and most didn’t want to switch. But I saw where things were going. In 2010, we moved our own operations to AWS to see if it worked. Costs dropped by 20 percent. Disaster recovery and reliability improved. Our recovery time after a failure went from hours to minutes.
By 2012, we started moving clients. We never looked back.
For the next few years, things were stable. We had long-term clients, a solid team, and smooth operations. That gave me space to think about what was next in my unexpected career in IT.
In 2016, the hosting market was changing. Margins were shrinking. Hosting was now a commodity. I expanded our services to cover website performance, security, modernization, and legacy code support. That kept us going for the next decade.
Where I’ve been
Over 25 years, I’ve worked with all kinds of businesses. I managed reservation systems for a vacation rental company with over 400 properties. No major security incidents in fifteen years. I provided Tier 3 support to an Australian hosting company with over 20,000 customers in 15 countries, keeping uptime near 99.9 percent. I designed hosting for a social media startup that later sold for $100 million. I managed hosting for a NASDAQ-listed biotech firm, helping them keep public and corporate sites separate for security. I’ve worked with education, medical, legal, manufacturing, e-commerce, marketing, and other IT companies. There isn’t an industry I haven’t touched.
Along the way, I built rackAID into a recognized name. I spoke at industry conferences, made the MSPmentor 250, and was quoted in Forbes, Inc. and Entrepreneur.
What actually matters
What I’m most proud of isn’t the recognition — it’s the relationships. Some of my clients have been with me for over 20 years. In technology, that’s not a vendor relationship — that’s a partnership. As one client put it, ‘You are the only person I have worked with who has offered constructive advice.’
Today
Now I’m back where I started. I help people figure out what’s really going on.
The difference is, I’ve spent 25 years learning what works, what breaks, and what questions get missed in technology. I’ve been on both sides of the vendor relationship. I know what good looks like. I know when someone is just checking boxes.
The most overlooked question is simple. Is my IT actually working for me?
Answering that question can lead to real results.