A few months ago, a small team of engineers huddled around a plexiglass enclosure on a table. A small, rugged mini-PC was anchored inside the 13-inch x 16-inch x 20-inch box. A cable ran from the PC, through a sealed opening in the enclosure, to a nearby monitor, which showed videos running on the PC. The flip of a switch turned on a fan and sent small particles of dirt swirling around inside the box, while the PC continued to operate flawlessly. A few days later, the whole setup was transported to a trade show in Denver, where it showcased the durability of the mini-PC.
The Path from Combat Engineer to IT Engineer
Georgi took an unusual route on her way to Prowess. After spending her childhood and high school years shuttling between Wyoming and Washington State, she enlisted with the Marine Corps and made the cross-country trek to Parris Island, South Carolina for boot camp. Georgi survived those grueling 13 weeks, and then she trained as a Combat Engineer in a heavily male-dominated environment that had only opened up to women less than a year earlier.
After extensive training in handling and deploying explosives, constructing barricades, and performing other combat duties, Georgi was sent to Camp Pendleton, California. Despite her specialized training, Georgi was assigned to fill an opening in community support services, where she offered career counseling and résumé assistance to families of service members.
This unexpected job change was fortuitous, however, because it ultimately led her to her career passion: IT administration and engineering. As part of her community support services work, Georgi helped install and configure operating systems, perform software and BIOS updates, manage Windows Active Directory accounts, and perform other IT duties.
Georgi eventually put her Marine Corps days behind her and continued down the IT path by getting a degree in computer information systems, with a specialty in database administration. From there, she joined a fledgling company in Seattle called Prowess Consulting in 2006. Over the last 13 years, both Prowess and Georgi have flourished.
Today, Georgi leads a team of engineers that takes on a wide range of consulting projects, from PC performance testing to creating hardware or software demos to performing competitive analyses of new products and technologies.
The team uses a modified agile approach to efficiently design and deliver solutions based on customer requirements. With the rapid growth of cloud-based offerings, Georgi’s team has developed in-depth knowledge on a range of hybrid and public cloud services, covering virtualization and containerization on open-source and proprietary platforms, including Azure, VMware, Google, and others. In 2019 alone, the team has prepared several trade show and sales demos, virtualized training modules, and hands-on labs.
They’ve also worked closely with Prowess technical writers and designers to perform research for reference architectures. In addition, they perform real-world and benchmark tests of systems in order to test performance and showcase hardware and software advantages for customers.
Building a Wealth of Knowledge
Georgi’s team is endlessly expanding its repertoire to include the latest cutting-edge technologies designed and used by our clients. The ever-growing list spans everything from handheld devices, client PCs, and end-user productivity software to composable infrastructure, containerization, virtualization, flash storage, and enterprise databases.
As Georgi says, “It’s great to be able to touch the newest tools, software, and devices. Plus, Prowess gives us the freedom to continue our professional training and grow our skills, so we’re always able to offer our clients expertise on the latest knowledge and trends in IT.”
To put Georgi’s engineering team to work for your business, give Prowess a call. And to learn more about what we do and get our take on emerging technologies, follow Prowess on our blog, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
