THE INVESTIGATOR. THE ARCHITECT. THE FOUNDER. THE COACH.
THE FIXER
Growing up in the Alisal, East Side Salinas, you learn to figure things out or you fall behind. In 2011, the violent crime rate in Salinas was 732 per 100,000. That was higher than Los Angeles. It was a 95% Latino community where over 30% of families lived below the poverty line. But the people are real, the community is tight, and I have always loved being here.
My first real introduction to technology was an HP Pavilion s500 Slimline with an Intel Pentium Dual-Core. That machine became my world. I tinkered with it, broke it more times than I can count, and always found a way to bring it back. The early internet was wild. I taught myself HTML and CSS by customizing MySpace pages for friends and anyone who would let me. Not hacking pages. Configuring the code, styling the backgrounds, making profiles look like they were built by a professional. That was my first taste of building something from nothing.
From there it was everything. Fixing phones, curing the infamous Red Ring of Death on Xbox 360s, cleaning viruses off family computers, recovering data from dying hard drives. Word of mouth was my entire marketing plan, and in a tight-knit community like the Alisal, it traveled fast.
That reputation landed me my first real tech job at Northridge Mall, sitting at a kiosk with a heat gun and a tiny screwdriver, fixing iPhones and iPads. It also launched my first real venture into business: charging people to fix their tech. No storefront. No website. Just trust and results. That was the first time I understood that expertise, freely given, builds something money can't buy.
THE INVESTIGATOR
I grew up watching what crime did to my community. Friends lost. Families broken. I wanted to do something about it. When I walked into Hartnell College, I enrolled in Administration of Criminal Justice because I wanted to be the one catching the bad guys. I worked with some of the best instructors in Salinas who pushed me to be sharp and thorough.
I studied investigative procedures, OSINT techniques, evidence handling, chain of custody, and courtroom proceedings. I learned how to write reports that could hold up under cross-examination. I studied interview and interrogation methods, crime scene documentation, and constitutional law. Every detail mattered because in criminal justice, sloppy work means someone walks free.
Then an FBI recruiter visited our class and said something that changed the entire direction of my life. He didn't mince words: "Crime has shifted from the streets to the cyberworld. We need less agents and more professionals." I was already fixing computers and understood hardware at a deep level. It clicked instantly. The modern battlefield wasn't on the streets I grew up on. It was online. And I already spoke the language.
That investigator's mindset - the pattern recognition, the discipline of evidence, the refusal to accept surface-level answers - never left me. It is the foundation of everything I do in cybersecurity today.
THE GAUNTLET
MBS Business Systems was where I earned my stripes. I walked in and never stopped moving. The company trusted me with everything. Help desk. Level 1, 2, 3 technician. Systems engineer. Network engineer. Security engineer. Sales engineer. When we pitched IT solutions to business owners, I was the one building the quotes and presenting the recommendations. When we closed the deal, I was the one doing the upgrades.
We landed Enza Zaden, a multinational vegetable breeding company headquartered in the Netherlands with operations in over 25 countries. I was the primary point of contact responsible for the administration and support of their entire North American sector. From a five-person office in Salinas to a global agricultural powerhouse, I handled the full range. That kind of exposure taught me something no certification ever could: how to read people and solve problems under real pressure.
I left for one week. One. Management called me back. They realized what I had been carrying when I was no longer there to carry it. I came back and became the vital part of the entire IT division. When a customer had a problem, they called Ulises, not MBS. One client told me they thought I owned part of the company because of how integral I had become to their operations.
THE SHIELD
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. As a Senior Solutions Consultant with an Active Top Secret Clearance, I have been surrounded by some of the sharpest minds in the industry.
That environment sharpened me across the full stack of enterprise infrastructure. PKI, Active Directory, Group Policy, DNS, DHCP, and complex network architecture - all hardened to STIG and NIST compliance standards. I built advanced PowerShell automation using the PSADT framework that cut deployment time by over 60% across 2,000+ endpoints in secure environments. I optimized OS imaging workflows at a scale most engineers never touch.
The DoD reignited my love for automation and code. Every certification I earned closed a blind spot. Every tool I mastered made me more effective. I did not collect certifications for the paper. I earned them because I wanted to be the most capable person in the room before I ever touched a production system.
THE FOUNDER
Every chapter of my career was building toward this. The kid who fixed Xboxes in his living room. The investigator who learned to think like a threat actor. The engineer who ran infrastructure for a multinational. The consultant who hardened systems for the Department of Defense. All of it led to Ghosxt.
I founded Ghosxt because I saw businesses in my community getting the same recycled IT advice from providers who treated security as an afterthought. Small businesses in Central California - the machine shops, the transportation companies, the property managers - were being underserved by an industry that saw them as too small to matter. I knew I could do it differently.
I build infrastructure the right way because I have seen firsthand what happens when someone cuts corners. I harden environments, architect networks, automate processes, and deploy the same real-time threat detection and identity protection I learned at the federal level. Every client gets my direct line. Every environment gets built like it matters - because it does. The businesses I protect are the backbone of this community. And I take that personally.
What Ghosxt Delivers
- Managed IT Services24/7 monitoring, patching, and support for your entire infrastructure
- Threat Detection & ResponseReal-time threat hunting with the same tools used at the federal level
- Network ArchitectureSecure network design, segmentation, and hardening from the ground up
- Cloud & IdentityAzure administration, conditional access, and zero-trust identity protection
- Compliance & AuditsNIST and STIG-aligned security assessments for regulatory readiness
- Automation & ScriptingPowerShell automation that cuts deployment time and eliminates human error
THE COACH
Coaching started with my father. Long before football, I watched him on the soccer field - how he led, how he treated his players, how he saw something in each of them that they couldn't yet see in themselves. He was hard on them, not because he was harsh, but because he knew exactly what they were capable of. He refused to let them settle for less than that.
I watched him develop players into young adults. I watched kids who were being pulled toward gang life find a different path on that field. The discipline, the accountability, the sense of belonging he created - it moved people. Not just toward better football, but toward better lives. I didn't fully understand what I was witnessing at the time. I just knew I wanted to do the same thing someday.
I started coaching football in 2012 while I was still playing, and I never stopped. When I came to Rancho San Juan, the JV Trailblazers had not won in two years. The kids walked in with a defeated mindset. They were used to losing. I took over the Offensive Line and applied the same philosophy my father taught me, and the same philosophy I use in IT: preparation beats talent, discipline beats chaos, and if the line holds, the team wins.
We did not just break the losing streak. We won more games than the JV program ever had. I identified the leaders, gave them ownership, and watched their confidence transform. Not a single lineman was lost to academics that year. They wanted to be there, and you could see it on Friday nights.
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. I coach with a few principles that have never let me down: accountability is not punishment, it is respect. Film does not lie, and neither should you. The play only works if everyone trusts the man next to them. And the best teams are not the most talented. They are the most prepared.
At the end of the day, the wins and losses aren't what stay with me. What stays with me is watching a young man walk off that field knowing he's more than he thought he was. That's the whole point.
