Meet William "Bud" Sims, Server Support Engineer

 

William Sims, known as "Bud" around the office, is a Server Support Engineer at FastServers.Net. Bud has returned to the company for a second time. Prior to his return, he worked for Classified Ventures, the organization that owns Cars.com, Apartments.com, and Homescape. "I worked in the corporate infrastructure department as a networking engineer specializing in Linux." He said his job was working more with the internal infrastructure, but he did learn a lot about network security, backup and SAN, disaster recovery, and data center management. "I was offered a chance to work with Solaris and Linux in an Enterprise environment. That experience alone gave me a new perspective on the hosting industry."

A graduate from DeVry University, Bud earned his degree in Network Communications Management. Bud joins the team with advanced technical skills, plus he has a creative instinct when it comes to supporting our servers. Bud said he came back to working at FastServers.Net because of the hosting environment and FastServers.Net people. "I missed working in the web hosting environment. I also missed the people I work with here at FastServers.Net." He continued telling us that FastServers.Net has some of the best engineers he has ever met. Yes. We agree with you Bud. Our engineers are the best in the industry. Welcome back.

Bud is a comic book fanatic. And we don't blame him. In fact, he has a tattoo of one of his favorite comic book heroes. "I have Superman tattooed on my arm. I have been a fan of Superman since I was a kid." He said the Green Lantern places second on his list of favorites. "The Green Lantern has a ring that can make anything he imagines manifest. I want that kind of power!" We asked Bud if he plans on getting a tattoo of the Green Lantern. "Not at the moment, but that is because the next few tattoos are already planned out. I have four right now so maybe one day there will be a place for Green Lantern." Some of Bud's favorite comic book writers include Geoff Johns, Bill Willingham, Brian K. Vaughn, and Warren Ellis. "Each writer brings new elements to the medium; each writer picks talented artists for their covers and interior artwork."

A lifelong fan of punk bands, Bud enjoys listening to Social Distortion. "Hands down they are my favorite punk band. They blend some of the best in American rock and roll with lyrics any guy can relate to." He said he considers Clash to be another favorite. "While they were not the first punk band, they were the first band to make punk into a viable sound." Bud claims they accomplished the task with their injection of reggae and American folk into the street punk sound.

Aside from punk bands, Bud said soul, jazz, country, reggae, and rock are his favorite music genres, specifically from the 50's and 60's. "Some of my favorites from that era are Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Toots and the Maytals, Jimmy Cliff, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus. Link Wray, Vince Taylor, Wanda Jackson, Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Ray Charles, Desmond Dekker, Bo Diddley." Bud is one of the few FastServers.Net employees we have interviewed who has listed so many musical artists. Maybe Bud should play a game of music trivia with Steven Anderson (he has a collection of 1500 LPs and CDs).

Bud likes to watch a game or two of baseball when the Chicago Cubs are playing. "I am a Cubs fan, but not a fanatic like most of my compadres here in the office." He said he enjoys watching football, but not American football. "European football is the only way to go!" As a kid, Bud played soccer and said he always enjoyed the games. "A friend of mine got me interested in watching Manchester United. We used to watch the games every Sunday. If you haven't watched European football, make sure you watch a game next season. You may end up being another fan."

One of the most challenging aspects of Bud's job at FastServers.Net is trying to find a way to allow customers (developers) to have freedom with their code on their servers, while still maintaining the highest level of security measures. "To help customers secure their servers, while retaining developmental freedom, I have made it a point to understand the technologies they are working with on their servers. I also thoroughly review how the customer performs tasks on their servers. Developers are just as wise as us engineers, but they are looking at things in a different way. I try to educate and bridge the gap between the two worlds."