Brian Bolander
Brian Bolander spent 13 years on active duty in the United States Air Force. A veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom, he was honorably discharged in 2005. He immediately returned to Afghanistan and worked on datacenter operations for the US Department of Defense (DoD) at various locations in southwest Asia. Invited to join a select team of internal consultants and troubleshooters responsible for operations in five countries, he was also the project manager for what was then the largest datacenter built in Afghanistan. After leaving Afghanistan in 2011, he managed IT operations in a DoD datacenter in the San Francisco Bay Area. His team was responsible for dozens of multimillion dollar programs running on VMware and supporting users across the globe. He scratched his adrenaline itch in 2011 when he went back "downrange", this time directing the premier engineering and installation team for the DoD in Afghanistan. It was his privilege to lead this talented group of engineers who were responsible for architecting virtual datacenter installations, IT project management, infrastructure upgrades, and technology deployments on VMware for the entire country from 2011 to 2013. Selected as a vExpert in 2014, he is currently supporting Operation Enduring Freedom as a senior virtualization and storage engineer. He loves his family, friends, and rescue mutts. He digs science, technology, and geek gear. He's an audiophile, a horologist, an avid collector, a woodworker, an amateur photographer, and a virtualization nerd.
Christopher Kusek
Christopher Kusek had a unique opportunity presented to him in 2013, to take the leadership position responsible for theaterwide infrastructure operations for the war effort in Afghanistan. Leveraging his leadership skills and expertise in virtualization, storage, applications, and security, he's been able to provide enterprisequality service while operating in an environment that includes the real and regular challenges of heat, dust, rockets, and earthquakes. He has over 20 years' experience in the industry, with virtualization experience running back to the pre1.0 days of VMware. He has shared his expertise with many far and wide through conferences, presentations, #CXIParty, and sponsoring or presenting at community events and outings whether it is focused on storage, VMworld, or cloud. He is the author of VMware vSphere 5 Administration Instant Reference, Sybex, 2012, and VMware vSphere Performance: Designing CPU, Memory, Storage, and Networking for PerformanceIntensive Workloads, Sybex, 2014. He is a frequent contributor to VMware Communities' Podcasts and vBrownbag, and has been an active blogger for over a decade. A proud VMware vExpert and huge supporter of the program and growth of the virtualization community, Christopher continues to find new ways to outreach and spread the joys of virtualization and the transformative properties it has on individuals and businesses alike. He was named an EMC Elect in 2013, 2014, and continues to contribute to the storage community, whether directly or indirectly, with analysis and regular review. He continues to update his blog with useful stories of virtualization and storage and his adventures throughout the world, which currently include stories of his times in Afghanistan. You can read his blog at http://pkguild.com or more likely catch him on Twitter; his twitter handle is @cxi. When he is not busy changing the world, one virtual machine at a time or Facetiming with his family on the other side of the world, he's trying to find awesome vegan food in the world at large or somewhat edible food for a vegan in a war zone.
