Sometimes, the right person at the right time makes all the difference. In the middle of 2023, C2IT found herself in need of a seasoned IT professional with a strong background in network and server administration. With a growing list of clients and projects in front of us, we needed someone who could hit the ground running and quickly increase our capacity to serve our clients.

Through a unique set of events, we were introduced to Matthew Allen, who refers to himself as a “thoroughbred nerd.” Matthew grew up in a home full of technology. His mom was a library and information scientist and his dad was an enterprise application integration architect. Dating back to the 286, he doesn’t recall a time in his life when they didn’t have a computer in their home. Matthew remembers being enamored with technology from an early age, even being in charge of running the fancy new VCR his family purchased with a tethered remote.

Initially, Matthew wanted to be a Navy fighter pilot, but a gift changed his plans. He received a CD-Rom with HTML templates, and he used it to build his very first website. This led to his curious mind wanting to understand how websites worked, and eventually, how to control the server that controlled the website. This curiosity led him to be a huge technical support asset at Best Buy, then an e-commerce systems administrator in London.

Matthew joined the team in August as a contractor, but quickly showed how helpful he could be. He has jumped in quickly with some of our more complex IT clients and helped troubleshoot, optimize, and provide valuable insights about their networks and workflows. We hired Matthew full-time at the beginning of February 2024. Matthew focuses on helping our clients, particularly when their networks or servers, even their cloud solutions, aren’t functioning at their best.

Matthew shared meaningful insights into his philosophy of technology. He said, “My Philosophy is that technology exists to save time. Time is the most important asset we have, and technology should help us make the most of the time we have. I want to help when that technology that should be saving time is stealing time and causing frustration instead.”

Beyond his technical expertise, Matthew is a personable guy with a quick wit. His favorite thing is spending time with his son, Gryphon. Matthew loves strategy games and puzzles, reading, riding his bike, and spending time with friends and family.