The short version.

I'm Matt. I spent a decade in the HVAC trade before pivoting to IT. Started in new construction with Ward Plumbing & Heating, moved into residential and light-commercial service up to 30 tons at All Service Heating & A/C, then stood up a brand-new HVAC division at Energy Tight as the company's licensed mechanical contractor. I still hold the NC mechanical contractors license today.

That decade in the field taught me how to troubleshoot systematically, how to deliver work that has to be right the first time, and how to talk to a customer about something that's costing them money or comfort. None of it left me when I moved into IT. The systems are different; the discipline is the same.

For the last decade-plus my day job has been running IT operations. First as IT Manager at a 125-user HVAC service business (where I also stayed on as the in-house HVAC technical consultant), now as IT Director at a national food sales brokerage with ~1,100 employees across 80+ sites. The work spans hybrid Azure + Microsoft 365 architecture, identity and endpoint security, ITIL on Freshservice, automation in PowerShell and Python, and M&A IT integration.

Alongside that, I run two small businesses I built and operate solo. After Hours Data Systems publishes a Flutter-based EPA 608 study app on iOS and Android, mostly passive now. Matt's Volleyball League runs four seasons a year for 150–200 players, with a Next.js platform I wrote on Cloudflare Workers handling scheduling, brackets, and contractor payouts. Both exist because I like building things, and because operating a real business with real customers is the best calibration tool I've found for the technical decisions at work.