Born in Wellington in the 1980s, Greg was one of those children who started pulling things apart to see what made them tick. Thankfully he also started to learn how to put them back together, much to the relief of his parents who nurtured his passion with a Dick Smith electronics kit.
After studying electrical engineering, Greg changed direction with a computer science degree. Working as a sysadmin with a start-up eventually brought him across the Tasman to work with Macquarie Group in Sydney in the 2000s.
A budding entrepreneur, Greg also founded a business working with virtual private servers, during which time he first started to dabble with the then fledgling Amazon Web Services.
The rise of cloud services opened his eyes to new ways for businesses to approach technology, and Greg became an active part of the community – speaking at the inaugural Sydney Puppet User Group and later becoming the treasurer of DevOps Australia.
“Cloud is not just about technology, it’s about getting the best out of technology,” Greg says. “This means your people need to change the way they think about technology, which is where Agile and the DevOps culture become so important.
“Technology is an enabler, but working effectively as a team requires empathy, which is why my talks on DevOps and Agile emphasise the importance of communication skills, not just technology skills.”
Greg’s passion for the cloud saw him move to cloud services specialist Bulletproof Networks (now rebranded to AC3) where he holds the title of Principal Practice Lead.
Earning all five core AWS certifications, plus one speciality certification, Greg was declared one of Australia’s inaugural AWS Cloud Warriors in 2015 and then an AWS Partner Network Ambassador in 2018.
“When it comes to individual technologies I’d say virtualisation has probably had the biggest impact on my career but, in a broader sense, the biggest influence would be the rise of AWS,” he says.
“The shift in thinking has been profound when you consider the fundamental differences about how you approach building infrastructure on AWS compared to any other cloud provider.”
Greg has handled data centre migrations involving thousands of servers on tight deadlines, following Agile and DevOps principles to bring the project in on time and under budget.
Despite these efforts, he considers his biggest achievements to be his shift in focus from being purely a technology specialist to also becoming a leader and evangelist.
“Making the most of technologies like the cloud requires strong leadership, which means understanding how people think and how to work with them to get the most from them,” Greg says. “As an introvert by nature, I had to work hard to take that step of standing up in front of an audience to share my knowledge and passion with people.
“Today I think it’s one of my greatest strengths, not just understanding ever-changing technology, but also knowing how to share that knowledge and encourage others to reach their full potential.”