Greetings and a warm welcome to my personal website! Delighted to have you here. Let's embark on this journey together, shall we? I'll do my best to keep things engaging and not too dry, promise! :D
My name is Christopher Alan Stanley, and I hold a Masters in Computer Science with a specialization in Cyber Security. Quite fancy, right? But how did I end up here? Well, it all started when I was just a kid. My parents weren't exactly the "athletic" type (except for my mom, she is awesome and runs marathons and stuff), but rather tech-savvy. My dad, a true genius, worked in IT for the state and introduced me to the world of coding and computers. Instead of tossing a football in the backyard like a "normal" family, we spent our time hacking away on the computer, even creating our own Space Invaders game in Visual Basic 6 at the ripe age of 10! Pretty cool, huh? Looking back, that moment was the catalyst for my enduring passion in the field I am pursuing today.
Fast forward about a decade, and I completed my first College Degree, an Associate in Applied Science with a focus on Computer Networking. It was around that time when I started my own company, Stanley Networks, LLC. I was fascinated with Computer Networking and all the thrilling aspects that came with it.
A few years later, I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Applied Information Technologies, but my career aspirations took a different direction as I shifted my focus to UNIX/Linux Administration. During my Master's program, I landed my first contract as a Cyber Security Consultant for Baptist Health Hospital, where I was entrusted with securing their Apache web servers and patching their RedHat Enterprise Linux boxes. I worked there full-time for about a year before I was offered another contract with the State Government as a UNIX Systems Architect. Over the years, my roles have been diverse and dynamic. From leading architectural design and implementations for a Hadoop platform to track salt for the Department of Transportation, designing a clustered Splunk infrastructure for state-wide data analytics and security, to spearheading a proof-of-concept for the Ceph scale-out storage solution.
During my time at the Commonwealth, I had the incredible opportunity to contribute to Kentucky's migration to an all converged solution (VBLOCK), where I was exposed to a plethora of cutting-edge technologies from Dell's catalog, including Cisco UCS, Nexus Switches, All-flash VMAX, Datadomain, Avamar, VPLEX, and more.
Working with some of the brightest minds in the world has been an absolute privilege, and I'm grateful for the opportunities to learn and grow.
Aside from my professional endeavors, I am also blessed with a wonderful wife, two adorable dogs, and in April of 2022 and November of 2024, I became a proud father of 2 little boys named Myles and Max. It has been amazing to watch these little untrained neural-net grow. They are without a doubt the most amazing thing I have ever experienced on this planet. I cannot wait to teach them all I know :)
In a world that could use more peace, love, and positivity, I'm always eager to expand my network and extend a helping hand wherever I can. If you have any questions or need assistance, please don't hesitate to contact me.
If you stuck with me and read this whole summary, then you deserve some internet points haha. Thanks for the interest! Take care :P
