It didn't start with servers — it started with people. At 17, I was sitting at a kiosk in Northridge Mall with a heat gun and a tiny screwdriver. I was the guy you came to when your world was falling apart because your iPhone 4 wouldn't turn on.
Growing up in the Alisal — East Side Salinas — you figure things out or you don't. It's a historically disadvantaged community, 95% Latino, where over 30% of families live below the poverty line. But the people are real, the community is tight, and I love being here. Nobody handed me a career path. I built my own.
I ran a side hustle out of my house fixing the infamous Red Ring of Death on Xboxes, cleaning viruses off family computers, and hacking MySpace pages to look professional. Word of mouth was my entire marketing plan — and it worked because I was personable. People kept coming back.
"A customer's hard drive was dying — bad sectors everywhere. Their entire company's files were on it. I ran a data recovery, sector by sector, and brought everything back. That's when I knew this wasn't a hobby."
When I walked into Hartnell College, I didn't go for Computer Science. I went for Administration of Criminal Justice. I've always had an investigator's mind — I wanted to catch the bad guys.
Then an FBI recruiter visited our class and said something that rewired my entire trajectory. I was already fixing computers, already understanding hardware at a deep level. I realized the modern battlefield wasn't on the streets — it was online.
"We need more cyber people than we need field agents."
— FBI Recruiter, Hartnell College
The logic I learned in Criminal Justice — evidence, chain of custody, pattern recognition, report writing — is exactly what makes me dangerous as a Cybersecurity Analyst today. When I'm hunting down a network anomaly, I'm not just an IT guy. I'm a detective.
If Hartnell was my classroom, MBS Business Systems was my boot camp. For three years, I was the strategic backbone for over 40 companies — from five-person offices to Enza Zaden, a global vegetable breeding company with operations across 21 countries. I was their primary point of contact for all of North America.
I did everything. Help desk. Network architecture. Firewall deployments. Building entire systems from scratch — cybersecurity, networking, infrastructure. Sales quotes. Presenting to business owners. We supported clients from Brazil to Canada. I was usually the youngest person in the room, but my dad taught me early: treat people like equals no matter the power you hold. That earned respect fast.
"A junior tech left Port 3389 open on a client I didn't manage. Ransomware got in. Lucky for them — I had built immutable backups across the environment. We were back online in hours, not weeks."
I didn't just restore their data. I investigated the logs, traced the attack vector, and patched every hole so it would never happen again. That range — tiny offices to multinational operations — taught me something no certification can: how to read people and solve problems under real pressure.
For as long as I can remember, I wanted to work for the federal government. Transitioning to the Department of Defense felt like stepping onto the field I was always meant to play on. I was ready — and I was excited.
As a Senior Solutions Consultant with an Active Top Secret Clearance, I've been surrounded by some of the smartest people in the industry. That environment sharpened me across the full stack of enterprise infrastructure — PKI, Active Directory, Group Policy, DNS, DHCP, complex network architecture — all hardened to STIG and NIST compliance standards.
"The DoD reignited my love for automation and code. I learned from the best to hone my craft at infrastructure."
I built advanced PowerShell automation using the PSADT framework that cut deployment time by 65%. I optimized OS imaging workflows across thousands of endpoints in secure environments. I don't collect certifications for the paper — each one closed a blind spot and proved I could master the tool before I used it.
I started coaching young, alongside my dad. He showed me the ropes and told me something that shaped everything: treat people like you are their equal, no matter the power you have. That lesson carried me from the sidelines to the boardroom and back again.
When I came to Rancho San Juan, the JV Trailblazers hadn't won in two years. The kids walked in with a defeated mindset — they were used to losing. I took over the Offensive Line and used the same mentality I use in IT: Structure. Discipline. Protection. If the line holds, the team wins.
"We didn't lose a single lineman to academics that year. They wanted to be there — and you could tell."
We didn't just break the losing streak. We won more games than the JV program ever had. I nudged the leaders, let them step into those roles, and watched their confidence transform. That culture change led to coaching the Offensive Line for the Monterey County All-Stars Classic — where the best seniors from every school in the county are selected to compete.