Russ Starr

I have participated in IT for the better part of 20 years. My first job was at an Internet Service Provider and Internet Cafe where I first learned about Linux, networking, systems administration, and the web.

I got into Linux as a hobby around kernel 2.0.35 (Slackware 3.6) and learned a lot of early networking through that. In high school I took Networking classes at Votech and learned lots of, now outdated, technologies like Novell, IPX/SPX, ISDN, X-25, frame relay, etc.

In college I took up OpenBSD and focused on Cisco networking courses. I got my CCNP before graduating college.

After college I focused heavily on networking at Cerner. I started as a Network Engineer and I am now a Lead Technology Architect. The first few years at Cerner included mostly WAN and some data center technologies. I began to focus more on the data center and eventually transitioned to our private cloud team where I brough OpenStack to life at Cerner as a private cloud solution. My last role at Cerner was on the Cloud Enablement Engineering team where I helped our product teams be successful in the pubic cloud.

Today, I work at Google as a Customer Engineer in the Google Cloud Mid-America team.