You may have noticed I have been writing a fair bit of content for RackNerd so I thought some of you may want to know a bit of my background. Well, here it goes…

My name is Dave Cooper, I am from Auckland, New Zealand and started in my IT career 15 years ago when I was 20 years of age, my very first computer was at the age of 10, it was an Apple Clone II and all I knew was how to do was play Donkey Kong on it. I then moved up to an AMD Cyrix chip computer, I thought I was the bee’s knees and the coolest kid in town, this is when I started learning about computers and how they were built and worked.

Fast forward 9 years, I had left school and jumped straight into studying information systems, I soon realized that I was learning things faster than they could teach me by researching topics that interested me. Armed with this I jump straight into a System Administrator job working for a broadcast software company. I soon found myself managing databases, testing applications, and running the company’s backup and disaster recovery solution. You could say I got thrown into the deep end very quickly. From there I worked for an MSP (Manage Service Provider) for a few years to gain additional knowledge on broadband technology, managed solutions, and server migration. 2 years on I left and started my own company providing IT consulting, web hosting and broadband solutions. During this time I was brought on by Air New Zealand to assist in the migration of their operational systems from Windows 7 to Windows 10. 4 years on I closed up shop with my company and jumped on board full time with Air New Zealand, this saw me manage vendors, infrastructure, oversee technical project rollouts of airports and travel the world.

I have learned a lot and am still learning. I am a firm believer that there is always room to learn and improve your skills.

While IT has been my bread and butter my passion for all things media is way up there too. In parallel for 10 years, I ran a freelance production business providing web design, video production, and marketing. This has also led me on some great adventures producing music videos and commercial voice-over work. 

It’s been an awesome journey.

We have some exciting things planned, so watch this space -> https://blog.racknerd.com/

If you want to connect, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.