About Me

About Me – Who are you and what have you done?

My name is Donn Felker. I work as a Principal Agilevent, a Microsoft Partner in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I’m an experienced Software Architect/Developer with over 9 years of professional experience in various markets that include – entertainment, health, retail, insurance, financial, and real estate. I hold an MCTS in Web Client Development for the ASP.NET 2.0 and 3.5 Framework, an MCP, I’m a Certified Scrum Master and I am certified in ITIL Foundation v2. I also hold a bachelors of science in Software Engineering as well. I write, present and consult on various topics ranging from architecture to agile practices to patterns and practices. I find that I really enjoy mentoring developers who have a passion to learn in a collaborative environment. I am also a part of the open source Tree Surgeon project which helps developers set up “scaffolding” for a new project in .NET, similar to Rails. I also participate in the TFS Deployer project, founded the Store Locator project and also contribute to other projects via patches, documentation, etc. I’m also the founder/coordinator of the Twin Cities Give Camp and the founder of Twin Cities Pragmatic Beer.I am also the president of the Twin Cities Developers Guild as well.

So what is my history?

Prior to Agilevent I worked at Magenic as a Senior Consultant. Prior to that I worked as a Senior Consultant at Statêra (a gold partner as well) and prior to that I worked for RVI Group, the world’s largest residual value insurance company in Stamford, CT. Previous to RVI Group, I worked for Televerde a market intelligence company located in Phoenix, Arizona. While at Televerde I was introduced to a wide array of development and infrastructure challenges that I had never encountered before and in doing so I was introduced into some of the same technologies that I use to this day. I honestly feel that my “ALT.NET” roots were germinated at Televerde. My time at Televerde has ended up being the most influential experience in my career. Before Televerde I worked for Todd McFarlane Productions for many years. I implemented many mission critical systems that still serve this company to this day. At Todd McFarlane’s company I was in charge of various projects ranging from audio production, video production, software engineering, graphic design and network infrastructure. Being involved with such a vast array of highly creative individuals (toy sculptors, comic book artists, designers, and Todd himself) and projects I have been able to supply highly successful solutions to many vertical markets in the entertainment industry. Previous to Todd McFarlane Productions I worked at Target Corporation as a Unix Tech/Developer, Team Trainer and Senior Technical Support Representative.

Between the years of 2002 and 2006 I was the Principal for my own company – G9MEDIA. I specialized in working with entertainment industry clients and implemented many media related solutions. A sample of these clients include Atlantic Records, Dreamworks/Universal Records, AFI, Nitro Records, TMP Intl, and a few other small indie labels from around the country. I was one of the first to start implementing fully dynamic Flash solutions utilizing PHP and MySQL data stores. This was prior to the You Tube boom, so this technology was red hot, unfortunately I didn’t know the right people in the right places to make it big in that arena.

 

Now for some things you probably don’t know about me…

– I hated computers until 1997. I couldn’t stand them. I didn’t even know how to turn one on. Then I was introduced into the internet. Hello internet addiction. I was originally introduced to the internet from a girlfriend I had at the time and two weeks later after I got paid I bought my first computer, a 333mhz Hewlett Packard machine. I surfed the web with AOL (don’t flame me, … it was over 10 years ago, give me a break). Ever since I sat in front of this first PC I haven’t stepped away from a computer.

– I’m originally from a very small town that is near the base of the Mt. Lassen Volcano in northern California. The name of the town is “Shingletown” (no, I’m not joking). The population when I left in 1997 was 1000 people. The town is moving up though, they even have a Shingletown website now. Hey Shingletown, 1995 called – they want their website back.

– I train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I have trained under Gustavo Dantas (http://www.gdjiujitsu.com) which is also the same gym where the recent Ultimate Fighter (Ryan Bader) came from as well as the previous seasons runner up. Since moving to MPLS I have fallen off the training wagon but I’m looking at a few good gyms in the area. Namely one that Brock Larson goes to from time to time.

– I’m a certified Motorcycle Mechanic. I attended MMI (now part of UTI). This is actually the reason I ended up in Arizona. The only two options at the time were Orlando, FL or Phoenix, AZ. I opted for Phoenix. When I graduated from MMI I realized I hated working on motorcycles and the pay was garbage. So I went back to school for a Software Engineering Degree.

– I was almost a stock broker at one point. Prior to jumping into the ship to technology I was about 1 week away from taking my Series 7 and Series 63 securities exams. After arguing with a millionaire over 27 cents on his statement for 4 hours and proving him wrong through the use of a basic calculator and elementary arithmetic many times, I realized this wasn’t the industry for me. The customers were just too much to handle for the rewards of the job. Some people love this industry, but it wasn’t for me. I needed more “puzzles” to solve and less non-existent fires to extinguish.

– I used to race Pro-Am motocross in California prior to attending MMI. I was sponsored by Suzuki and many other small companies around the California area. I broke bones and sprained many joints but I kept at it. One afternoon while at a practice session in Marysville Motocross park I came over a jump at over 45 MPH and crashed on the landing. I ended up breaking my leg so badly that I needed multiple surgeries to fix the problems (the leg works just fine now) – but at the time I decided to hang up my racing gear and call it quits. The riding was fun, but I figured I would enjoy walking and playing with my kids’ later in life rather than risking another accident of that magnitude. I still loved motorcycles which is the reason why I attended MMI.

– During my high school years I obtained certification in cabinet making. That’s right boys, I’ve got wicked skills with wood working tools. I’ve created and sold hundreds upon hundreds of Burl Wood Clocks. They look very similar to the clocks on this site. I haven’t created a clock in nearly 10 years, but still it’s something that was part of my life and might end up being a part later in life.

– I’m an avid Mountain Biker and gym monkey. I competed in my first mountain bike event ever (a national event at that) – The NOVA National 2006 – and got second. I haven’t competed since but I still do mountain bike quite a bit when I have time. When I’m not mountain biking I go to the gym consistently to stay in shape. I’m looking to start running in small marathons, we will see how that goes.

That’s me past to present. Be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed to receive updates on the blog. Thanks for reading.