In 2005, while working on some cool short-range wireless technology, my old office had a single spectrum analyzer shared amongst a team of engineers. It was big, cumbersome, and expensive. I was tired of having the spectrum analyzer cart in my cubicle, so one night I starting hacking some firmware and software to create the first Wi-Spy. Sure, it wasn’t nearly as sophisticated as the Agilent spectrum analyzer I had been using, but it was a lot smaller and easier to use, which was pretty cool. I figured maybe other people would think it was cool too… and the rest, as they say, is history. Today, MetaGeek is a small tight-knit team of folks (mostly geeks) that strive to create easy-to-use wireless troubleshooting tools.
- Ryan Woodings
~ THE METAGEEK TEAM ~
Ryan Woodings,
Chief Geek
As MetaGeek has grown, Ryan has worn a variety of hats. These days he spends most of his time managing the business (and sneaks some development time in too). As the Chief Geek, he sets the vision and fleshes out the road map, hires and retains talent, and make sure there is cash in the bank. He also led the redesign efforts for the new office space. To relieve stress, he enjoys running … a lot. When he’s not training for a 10K, he’s training for a half marathon. Most of the year, Ryan cruises to work on his mountain bike as part of the MetaGeek bike commuting team.
Brian Tuttle,
Geek Herder
Brian oversees our R&D process and acts as scrummaster for the software development team. Sometimes they even let him write a little code! As the Geek Herder, he keeps the team on task to execute the roadmap and makes sure everyone has what they need to get the job done. He also leads new process development – having seen code grow from the beginning. To ensure that he doesn’t ever develop a personal life, he also occasionally writes device firmware and re-compiles Chanalyzer in his freetime. Most importantly, he brews the coffee and runs the dishwasher.
DEVELOPMENT GEEKS
Adam Morgan,
Architect, Geek Mentor
Adam bends software to his will, and everyone else tries to keep up. When he isn’t creating our next generation software or improving our development processes, Adam keeps busy by trying to persuade his fellow engineers to come do CrossFit with him in his garage. What can we say? The guy’s an animal. He’s the keeper of the software team’s tribal knowledge, and works on structural refactoring and process development when not crafting our beautiful code.
Mike Byce,
Mad Hacker
Mike brings a host of mad skills to the MetaGeek team. As one of our lead developers, he also handles all our front-line manufacturing tool issues, expertly navigating the connection between hardware process and software, and helps troubleshoot any issues that arise during the manufacturing cycle. He’s also writing a new server-side code base for a “soon to be released” product. Part of the bike commuting team, Mike clocked in an impressive amount of miles over the summer.
David Thedens,
Big Ham Hacker
David brings years of software and driver knowledge as well as his fresh sense of humor to the group. As one of our lead developers, he expertly handles windows driver implementation, negotiates the complexities of packet capture drivers, embedded C/C++ development, and is now contributing in C# as well. Also part of our bike commuting team, David logged the most miles of all with his impressive 30+ mile round-trip per day. David lifts large weights with both hands and leaps short curbs, often without tripping.
Ben Bower,
Hacker
Ben is by far the quietest of all the geeks, hacking away at piles and piles of small changes and code fixes. When he’s not whacking down stray lines in the code with his silent kung-fu, he’s voluntarily sweeping up massive piles of tiny little bug fixes. Underneath his quiet demeanor is a daredevil skateboarder rolling around town whenever he has the chance.
Ashok Gelal,
Hacker
Ashok is one of our “intern-turned-full time employees” – having just completed his degree in Computer Science at Boise State University. He is constantly learning and bringing new ideas to the team. Ashok is notorious for accepting projects and completing them way ahead of schedule and is often found coding open source projects.
Josh Nicks,
Tool Hacker
Josh works with the MetaGeek continuous integration build, unit testing, and coding standard enforcement tools, and investigates any new tools that might be needed on the team to streamline the development process. Josh has also been known to just dive in and build the tool himself when something custom is needed. In addition to all this, he works on all our applications with the rest of the development team. Josh likes to hike, camp, read, bike and do all kind of fun “normal” stuff with his wife and kids.
Vanessa Gertman,
Hacker
Vanessa is the first woman to join the development team and holds her own in the code kitchen. She started out at Boise State thinking she wanted to study Math, but after taking an introductory CS class she went over to the dark side and decided to do both CS and Applied Math, graduating summa cum laude. Vanessa loves solving problems that she initially thought were impossible. In her freetime, she likes to read books which have nothing to do with computer science or math, and go swimming. Vanessa also owns way too many water bottles.
Jacob Strength,
Future Hacker
Jacob started working for MetaGeek as an intern and just a few months later won Boise State University’s App-athon weekend coding challenge. We were very excited that he won, and that he gets to work with us – solving problems, developing solutions, and being creative in making our software better. Jacob is currently getting his degree in Computer Science at Boise State University and in his free time likes to hang out at the river in the summer and snowboard in the winter.
Rich Parker,
Firefighter
Rich is our resident IT brains. He makes sure the internal MetaGeek systems are functioning and optimized for the future. He also handles our QA process – developing the test plan and processes to keep MetaGeek products limited to the fewest amount of bugs possible. He also is our backup-backup technical support resource when Trent and Taylor are unavailable and manages our website on the server-side. Also, if you ask Rich, he absolutely “loves” to fix Mac problems!
Zach Curry,
QA Intern
Zach, our newest Quality Assurance intern, used to daydream about strong A.I. while working his day job as a Project Surveyor. Years later, he decided to pursue a Computer Science degree at Baker College and is working on making his dreams a reality – enhanced by hands-on learning in the MetaGeek QA department. In between work and school, Zach wields a six-stringed axe and studies the brutal art of metalcore.
HARDWARE GEEKS
Steven Connelly,
Slide Rule Operator
Steven is the resident hardware developer – bringing years of experience to MetaGeek products. He handles the firmware for our USB spectrum analysis devices, and can bring up hardware for our developing projects. He manages hardware architecture down to the micro controllers. On his linked-in page, a former co-worker says he’s an engineer’s engineer – and we appreciate that quality about Steven very much.
TRAINING and SUPPORT
Trent Cutler,
Jedi Trainer
If you’ve called or emailed MetaGeek with a support question – you’ve probably already met Trent. Along with technical and forum support, he handles our customer and partner training, and is the person you’ll see and hear in our informational videos on the web, and is fully CWNA certified. He coordinated and networked the MetaGeek bike commuting team – but don’t ask him how many miles he contributed. Trent can often be found trying to say “no” to donuts and “yes” to cracking people up with his striking sense of humor.
Taylor Bell,
Copy Hacker
Before joining the MetaGeek, Taylor got his bachelors degree in Communication and is pursuing a second degree in Computer Science at Boise State University. He also was recently a Google student ambassador at BSU. His love of learning, collaborating, and teaching make him a great addition to the support team. When he’s not learning more about the wide world of Wi-Fi, Taylor is studying or riding his bike.
Joel Crane,
Technical Support Padawan
Joel, the latest addition to our Technical Support team, is an all-purpose geek! As our front-line guy, he answers as many support requests as possible – freeing up Trent and Taylor to focus on writing and training. Joel, a quick learner himself, will help you understand how things work with Wi-Spy, Chanalyzer, and Eye PA. When the weather permits, Joel would rather ride his motorcycle to work. He has a ton of other geeky interests, including Linux, Android, and Twitter. He loves spending time with his wife and daughter, and also serves on the Board of Directors at Open Lab Idaho, a local community hackerspace.
SALES & MARKETING
Stoney Tuckness,
Biz Dev
Stoney manages our sales initiatives – handling all of our accounts around the world. Our go-to guy for distributors and resellers, Stoney brings years of technical engineering and business development experience to the table, having previously helped a range of emerging to multi-national companies grow. With a background in computer science, he understands many of the finer details of technology and brings his expertise to navigate and improve our sales processes. When he’s not learning the latest about Wi-Fi Troubleshooting, you will probably find him fanatically rooting for the Boise State Bronco’s and San Francisco 49′ers football teams.
Mark Jensen,
Marketeer
Mark handles our day-to-day business, sales and marketing tasks. He talks with customers, handles sales, facilitates product reviews, develops industry contacts, and helps us know how our products stack up to the competition. Mark also dives right into the manufacturing process with our development and operations teams, who together bring our future products into reality. Mark has his CWTS and is working on his CWNA to be even more of a “certified” Wi-Fi geek than he already is.
Wendy Fox,
Marketing Magician
Wendy handles most of the MetaGeek marketing initiatives. She can write, design, plan, and execute projects with a swiftness that comes from years of technology experience. She also manages the front-end of the website – administering A/B tests for new page development and studying analytics tools to make sure everything is on track. She’s also known to tweet, blog, make video projects, and knows enough about wireless networking to be dangerous. Add in trade show management, product photography, and all sorts of extra curricular community projects – Wendy brings a lot to MetaGeek’s marketing.
Chris Woerz,
Smokejumper
Chris leads up our UX and cross-team sprint coordination for development. He came to MetaGeek with a deep understanding of databases, IT architectures, and an insatiable drive to write code. Chris now steers the marketing definitions for software sprint development. He easily wins the prize for being the most outwardly social of the bunch – currently organizing the latest strategy to replenish the office keg. He is also our resource for deep data analysis, as well as a member of the bike commuting team.
OPERATIONS
Skay Woodings,
Financial Stuff
Skay takes care of the business financial details so the geeks can focus on what they do best – making great visualization hardware and software. She makes sure employees salary and benefits are handled seamlessly. She also gets the honor of paying all the office bills, organizes HR matters, and handles various contract details when they pop up. Skay is also notorious for making amazing treats that she brings in to share with the office.
Wen Olson,
Operations
Wen keeps the wheels of commerce rolling around MetaGeek. She leads our operations processes, manufacturing, and inventory control – expertly taking care of getting all the versions of Wi-Spy and Chanalyzer built, packaged, and shipped. She also manages the flow and availability of all the third-party products we sell on our site. Wen is also heading up several new shipping and management initiatives which will result in better processes and faster product delivery.
Craig Johnson,
Master Control
Craig translates finance data for the geeks – handling budgets, forecasting, HR / benefit oversight, and general number crunching. With wide-ranging experience in accounting, finance, and human resources, he’s worked with medical, non-profit, and tech sector companies from start-ups to those with annual revenues of nearly $1 Billion. Craig received his MBA in 2008 from Boise State University with an emphasis in entrepreneurship and data analysis. In his free time, he enjoys reading and playing with air-cooled Volkswagens.
Lael Uberuaga-Rodgers,
Swiss Army Knife
Lael doubles as both our front-line Customer Service and Office Manager, and wishes she had 4 more arms and hands. At the front desk, Lael works with customers via phone, live chat, and email, creates quotes, and processes orders. Wielding near-obsessive organizational skills, she also takes care of the Geeks’ travel arrangements, keeps the office stocked with snacks and supplies, negotiates with the HVAC guy, plans events, and remembers everyone’s favorite sandwich choice. Outside of MetaGeek, Lael is a supervisor at Boise Elementary Spanish, a women’s lacrosse referee, and President of Oinkari Basque Dancers.
Sydney Phetmisay,
Office Assistant
Sydney is a science-minded Senior at Boise High School, located right down the street from our Downtown Office. After graduation, she hopes to attend either University of Oregon or University of Washington, where she’ll turn her love of animals and biology into a veterinary degree. For now though, Sydney assists Lael with a variety of tasks around the office! When she’s not in the office or at school, Sydney is playing with her dog, or working on her paintings.