Sharon’s journey in IT began in 1999, when she enrolled in network management courses with a strong focus on Microsoft technology. From there, she entered an internship at a small investment firm assisting in preparation for the Y2K transition which was anticipated to wreak havoc with computer systems. There was research, contingencies planned for contingencies and then the crossover from 1999 to 2000 occurred with nominal impact. The internship lead to a full-time position in the same IT department with hands-on experience at every level of network mangement, from managing Windows, Exchage and SQL servers and their backups to desktop systems and applications. There were plenty of in-house projects given that the line-of-business application was developed in-house by a meticulous programmer and that the firm worked to be on the bleeding edge of tech. The firm even had one of the first VoIP systems with a desktop application providing drag-and-drop call management. With multiple offices and remote users, experience with firewalls and VPNs was gained. From there she moved to a small IT consultancy which became one of the first Managed Service Providers in the area. The consultancy was an early adopter of one of the first tools developed explicitly for MSPs to track everything related to their business. Clients covered a range of industries: medical, legal, financial, manufacturing, engineering, retail, non-profit. Again, exposure to and experience with many facets of technical services was immense. In 2011 she founded Custom Computer Services & more realizing that IT service providers moving from a break-fix model to managed services were becoming more difficult for the smallest organizations to engage for support. The company name was changed in 2022 to more accurately reflect services provided, since IT and managed services now encompass so much more than physical servers and end-user desktops. Many are intimidated by technology, but it doesn’t need to be that way. Sharon enjoys making tools run efficiently and teaching people how to use the pieces they need. When vendors overwhelm clients with “geek speak”, she’s glad to join the conversation and help the client understand what they need to in order to make informed choices. She’s also very pleased to have had a number of clients for many years. She’s grateful for the trust put in her services and truly enjoys working with many of the users throughout the organizations.