Hi everyone! I hope everyone gets a chance to know me a little better. Feel free to add comments (be nice!) if you share any hobbies or favorites.
¶ About Me
¶ Work Life
My current role here at KRESA is the Infrastructure Manager. I keep the following teams rollin' along: Server/Cloud Team, Network Team, and Information Security Team. I started out in IT back around ‘99 (technically, I was doing it as early as ’96 when a friend of mine and I started a computer business building custom computers, but I don't really count that) working at Pharmacia's (now Pfizer) Global Support Center as helpdesk tech. I went on to lead a portion of the helpdesk team there for their big Windows 2000 rollout project (yep, I'm that old). After that, I spent a couple years as helpdesk and deskside tech at Bronson Hospital. I then moved on to Secant Technologies for about 8 years. I started as a desktop tech, earned my MCSE cert and moved into the engineer role. I earned the VMware VCP and moved into the Senior Engineer role, leading many of the larger projects for Secant. I took a job as Infrastructure Manager at Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek, but quickly left there to come to KRESA as a Systems Engineer. Once here, I moved into leading just the Systems Team and eventually ended up where I am now, leading the full Infrastructure group of teams.
Certifications has been a big part of my career. It is important in a Managed Services company like Secant to prove to customers that they have highly skilled engineers and support staff. That is one of the reasons I tend to push certifications here at KRESA. We are very similar to Secant, People Driven, and other MSP vendors in that having certified staff helps prove to our districts that we are experts in our field, and that helps us grow and partner with other districts. I have earned the following certs: MCSE 2000, MCITP:Enterprise Administrator (2012, I think), Security+, VCP 3.5/4/5.5, AWS Solutions Architect Associate, AWS SysOps Administrator, Certified Scrum Master.
Last fall, I was selected to be one of Amazon Web Services' inaugural group of “Education Champions”. There were 12 selected and I was one of two K-12 Champions, with the rest being higher ed.
¶ Family Life
- Name: Michael Coats
- Family members: Andrea (Wife), sons Steven and Danny
- Pets: Xavier. He's a rescue dog. Part lab, part devil. He doesn't look it, but trust me. Don't trust this little rascal.
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And Rosie... Another rescue, and a high-energy rascal!
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¶ My Favorites
- Favorite book(s)/genre(s): I like just about everything, though sci-fi is probably my least favorite genre.
- Fiction faves: Flowers for Algernon, Of Mice and Men, and the book that makes me cry 100% of the dozen or so times I've read it - Where the Red Fern Grows
- Fave series': Harry Potter series, The Hunger Games series, Divergent Series and the Robert Langon series by Dan Brown. I'm also about 15 books into The Dresden Files series, which I also highly recommend if you like fantasy genre books.
- Non-Fiction: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. Isaacson also did bios of Ben Franklin and Einstein that were great. David McCollough's The Wright Brothers bio. Gary Sinise's Grateful American, Frank Abagnale's Catch Me If You Can, Grant Cardone's The 10x Rule, and if there's one the everyone should read, it's Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture. If you want to geek out, Wil Wheaton's Just a Geek was also great. If you want something relevant to what we're going through right now, read The Great Influenza by John Barry. It's a historical account of the flu pandemic of 1918-20. It goes into detail about the level of medical knowledge they had at the time. As far as historical information goes, The Great Influenza and The Wright Brothers were both fantastic reads.
- Favorite movie(s)/genre(s)
- Harry Potter Series, Star Wars (all), Back to the Future series, Hunger Games series, Contact, Stand By Me, Dead Poets Society, Miracle, and The Russian Five documentary
- Favorite actor/actress, writer, sports team/player, musical artist
- I'm a big NFL football fan. Unfortunately, I'm a Detroit Lions fan. I'm cursed, I know. UPDATE: Now that Matt Stafford has been traded to the LA Rams, I'm an LA Rams fan in addition to the Lions. That dude deserves success! I also co-host a YouTube stream on Tuesday evenings called “Building the Pride: A Detroit Lions Podcast” (many thanks to ChatGPT for the name recommendation!)
- As far as college go, I'm a State fan (Go Green) and strangely enough a University of Miami fan. I almost went to U of Miami… until I saw out of state tuition rate. :)
- As a hockey fan, I was lucky to witness the Red Wings dynasty from start to finish. Sergei Fedorov is my all-time favorite player, but Nick Lidstrom is my #2. I was lucky enough to meet him a couple times and got a pic with him (and then got it autographed the next time I met him). Other sports icons: Steve Yzerman, Barry Sanders, Matt Stafford, Isaiah Thomas, Tiger Woods
- Robin Williams was probably the funniest man to ever live and his movies always bring a smile to my face.
- Musically, I generally like almost anything. Mostly, I enjoy country and classic country. Garth Brooks is the man. I have everything he's ever done and was able to see him in concert twice. Definitely a “bucket list quality” concert. Randy Travis, George Strait, Gary Allen, Miranda Lambert, and of course Carrie Underwood. I also like a bunch of other stuff - Bon Jovi, Nickelback, Imagine Dragons, Pentatonix, GnR, Def Leppard, Billy Joel, Ben Folds, Maroon 5.
- I also love musicals. Les Miserables is by far my favorite. Phantom of the Opera and Wicked were both great. I loved Pretty Woman, Jersey Boys and the Million Dollar Quartet. Their music is great as well.I recently saw Waitress and Dear Evan Hansen, both of which are great as well.
- Favorite beverage(s) - I'm definitely a pink lemonade guy.
- Favorite foods - Other than Pizza and Tacos? Chicken alfredo, crab legs, shrimp, the entirety of our Thanksgiving meal.
¶ Other interests and hobbies
- Interesting activity I've done - On spring break a couple years ago, we took the boys on a cruise and we got to do a Dolphin excursion so we got to pet and command a dolphin. That was pretty cool.
- Most interesting trip or activity I've done - My first backpacking trip ever was a weeklong one through the Sierra Nevada mountains. We slept in Death Valley (which is the lowest place in the continental US) the night before we started and we summited Mount Whitney, which is the highest point in the continental US. Crazy to think that lowest and highest places in the continental US are less than 100 miles apart! On my second backpacking trip, we did a portion of the Rocky Mountains in Montana and I got to slide down a glacier. Not many people can say they slid down a glacier before. :)
- Other hobbies: I enjoy deer hunting, backpacking, and working with our local Boy Scout troop. I also enjoy collecting Magic: The Gathering trading cards and playing in competitive tournaments… because I'm a complete nerd. :-)
- Something about you NOBODY would guess - Oof. This one is hard. I “suffer” from aphantasia. I always thought that the phrase “picture yourself on a beach” was just a metaphor for calming down. I had no idea some of you yahoos can actually visualize a beach. I can't do that. ( Essentially, I can't visualize things in my “minds eye”.) I joke that I'm visually broken and barren inside.