title: Strengthening the Infra team
date: '2022-06-27T12:51:54+00:00'
permalink: strengthening-the-infra-team
layout: post

<p>Since before the start of COVID-19, the Infrastructure team had one open staff position. We have been able to fill it this year with a strong addition to the team, <b>Chris Wells</b>.</p><p><i>Where do you live?</i></p><p>Birch Run, Michigan, USA. I was born in Flint, Michigan, but I have moved around a bit between then and now. I lived in Southern California and Perú for a little while and attended school at Northern Michigan University in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. After all that, I realized that I’ve always felt most comfortable in Mid-Michigan, so, here I am.</p><p><i>Family members?</i></p><p>A wife, four children, three cats, three budgies, and a dog.</p><p><i>What was your start date?</i><br></p><p>January 1st, 2022</p><p><i>Where were you working before here?</i><br></p><p>The Genesee District Library. I served as the IT Manager for the library, which is the third largest in Michigan by total population served. I used to tell people that “if it blinked or beeped, and it stopped doing either, we would fix it.” Across the 19 buildings of the library system our three-person team took care of public/staff workstations, phones, surveillance cameras, printers, and all the servers and networking equipment required to connect them. We also did staff training programs and liaised with outside vendors.</p><p><i>Is this your first time working as part of a remote team?</i></p><p>This is the first time I’ve worked asynchronously with a remote team, but not the first time I’ve worked remotely. Before working at the library I worked with a small hosting company doing sysadmin type work. While at the library I advocated for a rotating hybrid schedule (2 days onsite, 3 remote) for my team in an effort to reduce the chance of our whole department being quarantined/sick simultaneously.&nbsp;<br></p><p><i>What was the attraction of the ASF for you?</i><br></p><p>The ASF is the nexus point to so many projects that get used in so many places. Knowing I could help move that work along was very exciting.</p><p><i>Have you been involved in the open-source world before now?</i><br></p><p>I have been using open-source software since the mid-90s, when I discovered Linux. I have only begun contributing to open-source projects within the last 10 years, and even those contributions were pretty minor. It feels really good to change that.</p><p><i>What do you bring to the work?&nbsp;</i></p><p>I have a strong distaste for miscommunication, so I try to be an effective communicator. Additionally, I love solving problems and helping people get the resources they need.</p><p><i>Any big surprises so far?</i><br></p><p>I think the biggest surprise so far has been how nice it is to work in an environment where I don’t have to know everything and the work is spread out. In my last job I managed a very small team and we were stretched pretty thin most days.</p><p><i>Will you be at ApacheCon North America 2022, and can people meet you there?</i></p><p>I am planning to attend ACNA 2022 and look forward to meeting a bunch of people.&nbsp;</p>
