Aleksey Tsalolikhin, CEO and Principal Architect

Aleksey Tsalolikhin thrives on increasing the efficiency, productivity and morale of information system operations teams – improving the quality of their professional life and the reliability of the computing services they maintain. Aleksey loves to train and founded Vertical Sysadmin to improve the lives of fellow operations practitioners through effective training in excellent technologies.  In 2011, the League of Professional System Administrators awarded him their “Mentor of the Year” distinction, and he is now a member of the Board of Directors.

Outside work, Aleksey tends an expanding (sprawling?) balcony herb garden and goes hiking with his wife and daughter. He is from a country that doesn’t exist anymore.

Mike Weilgart, Lead Consultant/Trainer

Mike Weilgart has loved maths and computers all his life. Mike currently consults at a Fortune 50 company as an automation specialist, and enjoys nothing more than training people to full mastery of their tools.

Lori Barfield, COO

Lori joined her first Internet startup as a senior UNIX system administrator. Her company eventually went public, and she was hooked on that growth and success process. She now works in executive roles to help other technology firms prevail against their rivals. She has an international IT executive consulting practice and has developed leadership training courses.  Lori is a co-founder of the ShellCon conference and a Chair at the SCaLE conference in Southern California. In 2017 she developed RaiseMe, a unique career development effort for nonprofits, which has successfully helped people re-career into their first engineering roles in the information security industry.

Lori is a mother of five and enjoys the occasional escape to the woods with her husband.