Merlin D. Boissonneault

Hey kid, I'm a computer

Hello friendo, to the people who have met me it's no surprise that I'm a bit of a nerd.  But we're new friends so I'll give you a brief history on who I am.  My parents hooked me up with my first computer when I was two, it was a Commodore Vic 20 with a tape drive and I thought it was pretty badass.  From there we moved on up to an 8088, 286, multiple 386's and 486's and then into the wild world of Pentiums.  Needless to say my young adulthood was vacant of romantic adventures, however a solid foundation to earn a decent paycheck was cemented by my parents forward thinking.  

Fast forward a few decades and a whole bunch of jobs later here we are, but whoa I lets rewind a bit cause how did we get here. In the early 2000's I had my first taste of Technical Evangelism and boy was it good.  I saw these cats from Microsoft on a stage talking about awesome tech and I was like holy shit thats a job, these people get paid to do this, I WANT TO DO THIS!!!  So I started to research how these people became Evangelists and the one thing they all had in common was a breadth of experience in their technical field.  I began my quest for knowledge and experience, working both in the private and public sectors.  Working as a consultant and administrator, learning everything I could about tech and business.  

After years of grinding and public servitude I was rewarded with my first job that would allow me to do some Technical Evangelism.  I became a Senior Systems Engineer for a Silicon Valley based startup and what a ride that was.  I covered a massive geographic territory and assumed life between taxis, airports, hotels, offices and sometimes home.  This career has afforded me the opportunity to travel across North America to different events and customers, to speak to collectively thousands of people while I did my best to make PowerPoint fun and to also meet so many amazing people that I feel privileged to be friends with.  I'm no longer with that company but I'm onto a new adventure that I have no doubt will be just as interesting.

It would be rude of me to leave out my time with the VMware User Group (VMUG).  I spent several years there as a leader and also as a member of the Global Community and Leadership Development Committee.  My experience with VMUG helped me gain the confidence and skills to speak in front of large groups of people and afforded me the networking opportunity to find my first job as an SE.  I also have to give a big shout out to VMware itself!  Specializing in their technology and focusing on it for years in my career lead me to my roles with VMUG and changed my career direction forever.  Thank you VMware and VMUG.

So there you are, now you know about Merlin at work.