Well I’m Matt Ouellette, and I’m a network engineer.
I grew up in Northern Lower Michigan which is a strange term. It essentially means I grew up south of the Mackinac Bridge that leads to the Upper Peninsula. The town lived in sits on Lake Huron in a little bay called Thunder Bay.
Growing up there I played baseball, soccer, hockey, and an array of other summer activities including skateboarding, bike riding, and fishing. This is also where my technology interest came to be. My father has worked his entire career in the telephone industry which meant I spent some time at his office punching down wires for the fun of it.
I played in a band throughout my high school years but learned quickly I wasn’t going to make any real living off of that so I went off to my community college and earned a degree in computer networking. The natural choice came from my fathers work, and our house being early adopters to the Internet because of it. After graduation with an associates degree I moved away for job opportunities and really began to cut my teeth in the technology arena.
Now residing in Southwest Michigan halfway between Chicago and Detroit I’ve moved through my career from Staples computer tech, to small and large healthcare, and now doing design and deployment as a VAR engineer. Throughout this time I’ve studies multiple technologies around and outside of certification paths. I put this blog together to help share my experiences in doing so.
Outside of technology I’ll be found still playing my drums. It’s hard to give up such a fun and stress relieving activity such as that! I also continue to play hockey on an adult league once a week just to keep up the old skating chops.
Most often I’ll be found hanging out with my pup Aurora either going for walks our grilling out in the backyard. She’s not much of a pup anymore however, she’s still a small celebrity amongst friends. Aurora is the official mascot of the Packet Pilot blog and is affectionitally known as the Packet Pup.
Feel free to click around and let me know if you have any questions for comments. Aurora says Woof!