Corey Michael Badeaux

At a young age, my parents nurtured my curious and creative sides with things like encyclopedias (Funk & Wagnalls), electronics kits (Radio Shack), and my first computer (Commodore 64).  I read, built oscillators/transmitters, and learned write my own software and games.

As a teenager, I got my first real PC, a suave, beige 486SX25 desktop with a caddy-type CD-ROM drive and about 4 megs of ram, a basic sound-blaster card of some sort and a trusty ole modem.  My curiosity fueled my coding skills to the next level, finally writing complex compiled executables for DOS.

At the time, I went wild, probing the deepest hardware-levels that I had access to, in order to squeeze as much speed and usefulness out of the QuickBasic4.5 ecosystem.  I read what I could find about hardware addresses, interrupts, etc., and started building my own low-level & high-level disk utilities, binary file manipulation scripts, a self-installing executable system, custom database managers, real-time sound card visualizers, a high-featured image editor that I'm still proud of, demos and various tools... reverse engineered other's code to combat having limited resources.  I even had an extra phone line and a bulletin board system of my own... "The Flame Broiler BBS"... a name inspired by my first "real" job.

In my career, I have setup, administrated, and engineered solutions in the realm of firewalls, networking, servers, user support, hardware, SQL DBA, developer, reporting, data analysis, document management, web hosting, etc.., bringing me a well rounded array of understanding to solve  issues in complex systems.

In 1995 (at age 19), I started my first real tech job at TC Computers where I assembled and configured motherboard, cpu, ram, and cache combos.  While there, I took the initiative to write a database program (QuickBasic 4.5 & Proprietary Datafile) to track inventory, just to make my own job easier.  Later on, I was hired for inside sales and eventually field technician at Benecom Computers.  There, I learned a lot about Windows 95/98/NT, PC hardware, dummy terminals, printers, network cabling, etc... and with the Y2K hysteria all around!

In 2000, (at age 24), my friend helped me get hired at an IT consulting company called  Integrated Network Systems.  Their client, the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board, needed to update their aging FoxPro/DBASE based casefile system.  I was given the task and It was a true sink for swim situation where I had little Visual Basic experience and had never even heard of SQL Server, Crystal Reports, or ADO.   With limited resources, I am very proud of the fact that I was able to deliver a fully functional, custom developed, Attorney Case Tracking System that not only ran for over 25 years, but was modified to run in a few other regulatory jurisdictions as well (Maine, Hawaii, Washington D.C.). 

After a little over 10 years, I became the Systems Administrator & IT Manager where I had a hand in practically everything, allowing me to see the bigger picture as well as the smaller one, and the detailed steps between them.

A world with growing universal understanding that's fueled by exponentially expanding technology can be a wonderland to many, especially those who want to know what makes everything tick while simultaneously wondering where it's taking us.  My optimism has me honestly thinking that a cure for mortality itself is on the horizon once we can read the human genome to the point of having Ai take out the bugs, inefficiencies, and even expand on capabilities.

Well, if more time to live is on the menu, my wide variety of interests may make for a bucket list that never has to be written down.