Matthew Jenkins is an information technologist with a wide range of experience in computer networking, systems administration, and software development. Matt's ability to quickly learn coupled with his desire to do things safely and efficiently have become a great asset in both his personal and professional life. Matt's hobbies include horses, computers, writing, and photography.

Matt was born in a rural area of West Virginia, yet raised as a child in several states across the United States. As Matt's parents moved with work, Matt found himself experiencing a well rounded life in Texas, California, Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia. Matt's parents would return to West Virginia in time for Matt to complete high school and begin college at Salem-Teikyo University where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science / Mathematics with an emphasis in Computer Science.

During his childhood, Matt began to tinker with computer equipment that his father would bring home from work. To meet other tech savvy friends, Matt began to participate in forums on the early Compuserve system and BBSes (bulletin board systems) with a 300 baud modem. Later, as a teenager, Matt ran The Doorway BBS while living in Atlanta. Matt began to learn the C programming language as he developed new features for his BBS.

At the dawn of the graphical Internet, Matt began to learn HTML to develop his own website. Soon he learned other Internet languages such as JAVA, ASP, and PHP. Using these skills, he started his own website, volunteered as a webmaster for Salem-Teikyo University, and helped friends develop various Internet sites. In college Matt quickly picked up C++ and assembler. As a challenge, Matt would take many assignments that were to be compiled for Microsoft Windows and develop them for the UNIX X Window System.

In college, Matt found a hobby outside of computers - horses. With no prior knowledge of large animals, Matt found himself quickly learning to take responsibility of two American Paint Horses his parents brought home. Horses require a true leader: one that is patient, communicates clearly, is responsible, and only shows authority when required. Through them Matt has learned how to be a better team leader and true friend. Horses, despite being a lot of work, provide relaxation from the chaos of a fast paced career such as information technology.

Out of college, Matt began working as a network and systems administrator for Salem International University. After upgrading to a T1, the university quickly found their infrastructure was not ready for over a thousand resident students, let alone hundreds of employees and tens of thousands of Internet visitors. With his Linux experience, Matt deployed essential services including ipfwadm firewall, DHCP, internal DNS, and mail services (SMTP, POP3, and IMAP). Furthermore, Matt created an NT domain using Samba which provided file and print sharing services to a central file server. As students required Internet access in their dorms, Matt assisted with deploying 802.11b access points throughout the university, configuring rate limiting and QoS, and logically separating students from other campus workstations.

After Salem, Matt had an opportunity to work for Analytic Services, Inc. as a software developer. It was there Matt had the opportunity to join a team dedicated to providing quality research and development for various government entities. Matt worked on various projects including Naive bayes text categorization, biometric enrollment and identification, and Internet crawling utilities. Many of these projects were developed under the CMMI model in UNIX C, Microsoft .NET managed C/C++/C# and Visual Basic. Matt also maintained the network and servers for ANSER's Fairmont site.

After ANSER's contract for the Fairmont site was not renewed, Matt joined TMC, who was partnered with ANSER at the time. Matt's primary responsibility was to manage the IT infrastructure at TMC and many of their commercial clients. As TMC's contracts grew, Matt assisted in deploying Linux and AIX servers used for the development of software which collected weather data for long term archival. TMC was purchased by Global Sciences and Technology.

During the transition to GST, an opportunity became available for Matt to work as a network and systems administrator for Fairmont State University. The university was going through a complete redesign of their infrastructure and Matt had the skill set required to perform the implementation. Working closely with Agilysys, Inc. and Allin Corporation, Matt was part of a team that migrated over 30,000 Active Directory accounts to a new forest and provisioned existing mailboxes between multiple clustered information stores. During the implementation, Matt assisted in installing new Cisco routers and adaptive security appliances whose topology was designed to separately route internal traffic from web traffic. At Fairmont State, Matt continues to have the opportunity to work with a variety of enterprise class hardware and software to provide robust, reliable services to students, faculty, and staff.

While not at work, Matt enjoys time with his family and horses on their small farm in West Virginia. Matt volunteers his time as an officer for the West Virginia Equine Association whose primary mission is to provide education and resources to West Virginia equine owners. Matt also enjoys being an amateur equine photographer whose works can be found on his Flickr photo site. If Matt is not out on the trail with one of his horses, he can probably be found at his desk tinkering with the latest technology.

Return to Main