by Hi, my name is Joe McDonagh and many of you may know me from irc as ‘joe-mac’. I have been in various roles in the professional world, but I really began cutting my teeth with the UNIX family of operating systems when I was around 12, with a special interest in information security. 13 years later I’ve spent about 8 years in the software industry, doing tech support all the way through other roles and for the past 3 years I’ve been doing Operations only (rather than an odd mix of Operations and my other work), which is basically my forte.
That’s a general overview of my IT background, but down to the nitty-gritty. I love automation and making systems as autonomous as possible. I am a huge Puppet fan and user and have currently been using/wrestling with MCollective, a wonderful piece of software. I do a lot of bash scripting simply because I’ve been doing it so long, but I’m really loving Ruby as well. I’m deeply interested in information security, but in particular the simple, somewhat esoteric attacks that defeat large secure systems. That same interest reaches into the realm of physical security, in which I am also interested in locks, safes, alarms, etc.
Outside of my professional background, I am a huge DeadHead and music lover in general, with a collection of around 700 GB of Music. I’m from the Boston area, but the only sport I ever liked or was good at is Billiards. I also enjoy horticulture, but have had little time or space for that in recent times. I am also a huge movie fan from Kung-Fu Blaxploitation flicks up through solid contemporary dramas. I also have a somewhat similar style with food; I can love a simple street taco stand all the way up to suit-and-tie fine French dining.
Enough about my background, I’m humbled to be being asked to be on the LOPSA board because I really believe that our profession is so badly organized that we need some organizations to take leadership and advance what we do to the same level or organization and structure that other professions have had for their entire existence.
I know that I received little guidance about administration or even UNIX usage even during my short college stint. Our art is almost always picked up by chance, in odd circumstances such as Physicists who need to calculate some astronomical problem but instead becoming UNIX experts in the process, or by just messing around with that one UNIX box until you kind of get the hang of it. This sort of thing is just peculiar to IT I think, so I really love what LOPSA is doing with the mentorship program.
In the end, I’d like to help to be a part of something that progresses individual members’ goals, knowledge, and careers, and with that individual improvement comes advancement for our professional as a whole. Thanks for taking your time to read my statement.