About Bryan Manternach
Bryan is an experienced technologist with a breadth of experience covering a wide range of technology industries. Here is a history of the rocky road that led him to where he is today.
Bryan’s original schooling was in theatrical technology, Television and Film production. While in school at Lorain County Community College studying television and film production, he got a job working at a local computer shop. This computer shop was responsible for installing the first internet feed into Lorain County (Ohio, USA). Bryan’s experience in the electronic bulletin board community propelled him into this role, and his work was integral to installing the Lorain County Free-Net, Lorain County’s first ever public internet access. This experience motivated him to attend University of Toledo, and switch his major to Computer Science and Engineering.
Starting in winter of 1992, While at University of Toledo, majoring in Computer Science and Engineering, Bryan still followed his passion for theatrical technology and arts as a minor area of study along with minor studies in social anthropology. He was actively involved in internet subcultures, and was criticized by his professors when he proposed the study of internet subcultures as an area of study. Many universities now study sociology, and anthropology as they pertain to the internet. Bryan did not qualify for unsubsidized student financial aid. By winter of 1996-1997, it was apparent that he could not make ends meet on student loans. Taking three side jobs doing IT work was difficult to balance with a full load of classes. Interest payments on prior years Stafford student loans now accounted for nearly half of the current loan distribution payments. With tuition costs more than doubled in the time he had been attending U of T, the outlook was bleak.
In his free time, Bryan attended, and volunteered for many fan based conventions for Science Fiction, and Fantasy such as role playing, and Star Trek conventions. At one such convention, he befriended Carl Norden, who was residing in Silicon Valley. On Carl’s return trip to Silicon Valley, he visited Bryan’s home. It was a one room apartment in the basement of a nearly condemned house in the slums east of the U of T main campus. In his basement abode, Carl saw the smattering of Motorola MVME machines running FreeBSD, and the university surplus Sun 3/160 running SunOS, and knew that Bryan had the skills to make it in Silicon Valley. Later , Carl asked Bryan for a resume that would change everything.
One of Bryan’s side jobs was administering a Novell network for the Toledo Apollo hair replacement studio. Bryan also set up visual simulation systems that allowed customers to “pre visualize” images of themselves with different hair styles chosen from a library of hair style photographs. The Novell experience was just a necessary part of the more interesting work going on at the hair studio. However, the Novell experience was highly sought after in Silicon Valley. Upon seeing Bryan’s resume, Carl’s contract agency, Taos Mountain Software recruited Bryan, to come to Silicon Valley in the summer of 1997,to engage in a 3 month contract. This contract was doing a forensic data recovery at Silicon Graphics for a legal case. This 3-month project ended up only taking 3 weeks to complete, and Bryan remained on that contract for 13 months. Firmly embedded in Silicon Valley lifestyle, earning a comfortable living, Bryan is now on the second decade of that “3-month” summer job sharing a beautiful mountain home with Carl, and their two dogs.
Bryan is actively involved in the Boulder Creek Volunteer Fire Department in his home town of Boulder Creek. Bryan joined the department in 2001 after terrorists attacked the world trade center. Bryan completed the Cabrillo College Firefighter Academy via Palo Verde College with a 4.0 GPA and made the Dean’s list. On Tuesday, September 11th, 2002, he received his pager and began responding to fire calls. Shortly thereafter, he completed the EMT-B certification via Mission College, and passed the National Registry of EMTs exam. Bryan is currently supporting the data systems at Boulder Creek Fire, including the LAMP based web site hosted by their NetApp SAN based VMWare ESX cluster.
Following his dreams in theatrical technology, Bryan now operates a small event technical services and consulting company out of his home called Smashwolf Productions. Smashwolf Productions is a D.B.A. of Transwarp Enterprises LLC. Transwarp Enterprises LLC is an umbrella company that provides the framework for a myriad of professional ventures that Bryan is professionally engaged with, from web hosting services to communication systems, and event planning.