team

About Us

Crafty Penguins, established in 1994, is a leader in Linux consulting and server support, driven by a passion for technology and a commitment to excellence. With over two decades of experience, our team offers expert IT solutions to a diverse range of clients.

We tailor our services to meet specific needs, ensuring solutions are effective and aligned with your goals. This client-centric approach, coupled with our in-depth expertise, positions us as not just service providers, but committed IT partners.

Our Core Values

We earn your trust

We consider ourselves a part of your team and care about your project as much as you do. We listen to you carefully, ask questions, follow through with our promises and keep our work transparent to help you navigate technology even if you may not fully understand how it works.

We lean into challenges

We aren’t afraid of bruising our egos, and we’ll admit that it’s a difficult task or an unknown component if we encounter one. We are happy to learn, seek other perspectives, and lean on experience and knowledge of others to help you run your business more efficiently.

We look at the bigger picture

We are your competent partner who not just puts out occasional fires but who is familiar with your IT landscape and sees the bigger picture. To provide you with solutions that last and scale, we consider internal relationships, context, market, industry and impact on other systems.

We constantly improve

We always try to be better today than yesterday. For example, we make incremental improvements to your documentation and automatic monitoring systems or remove redundant items that don’t help you. And we share new knowledge and experience within our team to help every member grow.

MEET OUR TEAM

Wim’s first experience with Linux dates back to high school, where he learned how to install, upgrade and fix Debian Linux while spending hours to get the Windows-only dial-up modem to work.

Fast-forward through a university Bachelor’s degree in Computer Information Systems, several IT jobs in software development, Linux-based network security and database administration, Wim founded his own company Kerkhoff Technologies.

Once his client base grew, he decided to create a Linux-focused division which is now it's own company, Crafty Penguin Technologies. He also developed a training program for Linux engineers, knowing that no university or industry certification would provide his new team members with the unique skills they needed to support their clients.

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Our goal is to unlock potential for our clients

We unlock your business potential by removing roadblocks in the way of the flow of your work, and increasing reliability and performance of your systems so that you can serve your own clients better and scale your business without worrying about your IT.

ceo

Wim Kerkhoff

Founder and CEO

Chris Pickett

Chris Pickett

President – Crafty Penguins

Chris has 28 years of experience with Linux and DevOps. His experience in business matched with his technical knowledge puts Crafty Penguins in a unique position to provide sound advice and guidance for client infrastructures. He specializes in building microservice container infrastructures, bare metal to cloud computing migrations, and custom tool and integration development.

Richard Clark

Richard Clark

VP – Engineering

Richard has 35 years of experience with systems administration and software engineering in the Linux ecosystem. He specializes in DevOps, automation, systems architecture, training and frugal clean-up of technical debt. He has been using deploying and managing Linux environments in production since the mid 90s. With CKA and CKAD certifications, he is a strong proponent of the Kubernetes platform for container management due to its elegance and scope.

Joshua Smith

Joshua Smith

VP – Operations

Joshua has 16 years experience in Network Administration and Security, Server Management and Client Relations across a broad range of industries and technologies. He specializes in Operations because of his ability to take a ‘big picture’ view in order to provide the best solutions for long-term success.

Curtis Hildebrand

Curtis Hildebrand

Linux Systems Engineer

Curtis has 20 years of experience deploying and securing Linux systems and 6 years of experience in DevOps engineering. He specializes in system audits for security, stabilization, and migration of infrastructure due to system growth.

Nicole Mcfarlane

Nicole Mcfarlane

Sr. Linux Systems Engineer

Nicole has 10 years of experience with Linux, software engineering, and DevOps. She specializes in monitoring, metrics, and alerting, as well as our proprietary security automation systems of Crafty Penguins we use for all our clients.

Kevin Chee

Kevin Chee

Linux Systems Engineer

Kevin, who is a Certified Kubernetes Administrator, has over 5 years of experience in Linux server administration in a variety of areas such as DevOps, containerization, and automation. He has an interest in evolving his automation and DevOps skills.

Nishan Vivekanandan

Nishan Vivekanandan

Linux Systems Engineer

Nishan has 6 years of Linux and DevOps experience in Cloud Operations support as well as retail software development. He has a keen interest in all things DevOps. His astute sense of reasoning helps him get to the core of an issue and resolve it quickly.

Samantha Rapp

Samantha Rapp

Linux Systems Engineer

With 7 years of experience in Linux server administration in bare metal and cloud environments, Samantha is a Certified Kubernetes Administrator who specializes in automation, stabilization and deployment of microservice architectures.

Jordan Dohms

Jordan Dohms

Linux Systems Engineer

Over 15 years of experience in Linux server administration in a variety of environments. Jordan contributes with his existing skill set in web technologies, application integration, and troubleshooting, while continuing to evolve his DevOps and security abilities.

Alan Bailward

Alan Bailward

Linux Systems Engineer

Alan has been working in the IT industry for 25 years, and has experience in system engineering, development, system administration and technical support. He specializes in linux system engineering, which has been his love since he discovered Linux in the early 2000s.

Mike Millman

Mike Millman

Linux Systems Engineer

Mike has been working with Linux systems for over 25 years, with experience in development, systems engineering, administration, and testing. His specialties include microservices, cloud operations, containerization, and web technologies. He first discovered Linux in the 90's, and has been a staunch supporter and advocate ever since.