// Career

25 Years of Building, Scaling & Leading

From early sysadmin to COO of a $225M hosting company - every chapter taught me something different about technology, people, and growth. Click into any chapter to see the full story.

Chris Strandt at work with circuit boards and schematics
Late 1990s

Northville Public Schools

System Administrator

Started administering school district networks in the late 1990s - building servers, pulling cable, and learning that technology is only as good as the problems it solves.

Linux Networking Hardware
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~2000

Merit Networks / University of Michigan

Network Operations Center

Monitored and maintained backbone infrastructure for Michigan's primary research and education network - first exposure to large-scale, mission-critical network operations.

BGP NOC Operations Cisco SNMP
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~2001

Innoveda

CAD/CAE Implementation at Ford Motor Company

Deployed and supported enterprise CAD/CAE tools across Ford's engineering division - learning how large organizations adopt and depend on complex technical systems.

CAD/CAE Enterprise Deployment Ford Motor Company
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6 Deep Dives
2002 – 2015

Liquid Web

Network Engineer → Chief Operating Officer

Grew with the company from 7 employees to 450, rising from Network Engineer to COO and helping build a platform that led to a $225M exit.

Leadership Scaling Operations Data Centers Network Engineering Strategy M&A
7
450
employees · 2002 → 2015
Deep-Dive Areas
Networking Data Centers Cloud Platform Linux Operations The Exit
4 Deep Dives
Now

Power Gauge Pro

Founder & Builder

Founded Power Gauge Pro to design and manufacture embedded automotive digital dashboards - hardware, firmware, and full-stack product development from the ground up.

Embedded Systems Product Design Firmware Entrepreneurship
Deep-Dive Areas
Embedded Software Hardware Marketplace Modules