Bart Castle is the newest addition to the SPOTO roster. He has been busy creating Amazon Web Services training courses to complement our cloud training library. His first SPOTO course, AWS Security-Access Management, was just released.
We had a quick chat with Bart to get to know him better.
Q: What hobbies and passions do you have when you’re not creating videos? I am an avid musician and artist. I play lead guitar and flute with a local rock band (Asheville North Carolina) called The Fuzzards.
My whimsical artwork includes dinosaurs, musical instruments, amazing animals, and more. It can be found in the Zapow! You can find it in the Zapow!
Learn how to become a security expert with SPOTO’s Cybersecurity Training
Start trainingQ: What are you most fond of about Asheville? My family moved from Oregon to find a place on the East Coast that would allow us to have great access and enjoyment of wild spaces, music, arts, culture, and music. Asheville is a vibrant, active community that reflects many themes of change seen in politics and culture. It is a great place to learn, grow, and create.
Q: What are you areas of expertise in tech or IT? I have a background in Computer Networking. I spent the first half my career supporting converged networks and VoIP infrastructures for Cisco, Avaya and Nortel. I don’t have any funny Unified Communications jokes to tell you. These are empty promises.
I was promoted to network administrator, where my responsibilities included supporting the software developers and their lab. This was the moment automation and virtualization made their debut upon my life. I have been a champion of both automation and virtualization ever since, which has led me to the world cloud computing.
The instructor position was a perfect fit for me because of my broad interests and ability to work with people. I have been traveling around the U.S. and internationally for years, training in telephony, networking and cloud computing. I have gained a unique perspective of the IT world from working with so many IT professionals in a variety of industries and locations.
Q: Which certifications are you currently working on? Do you have any? There have been many, but I am currently focusing on my cloud certifications. I am one of only a few AWS Authorized Instructors (AAI) Champions. This means that I not only have all the core AWS certifications but have also demonstrated the highest level of skill in my training.
Amazon isn’t content to be static. They recently launched some new specialty certifications that I am currently pursuing. I have recently been awarded the Security Specialist title and am currently working towards my Networking Specialist, and Big Data Specialist certifications. These certifications are an add-on to other professional-level AWS certifications.
I am also a member of the Cloud Credential Council, an industry consortium that is not specific to vendors and which includes certified and active members. This council consists of industry professionals who are passionately interested in public and private cloud computing services. Here’s a list of current certifications:
Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Solutions Architect (Associate & Professional)
SysOps – Systems Operations
Developer
DevOps Engineer
Security Specialist
Cloud Credential Council (CCC).
Cloud Technology Associate (CTA).
Professional Cloud Solutions Architect (PCSA).
Professional Cloud Service Manager (PCSM).
Professional Cloud Security Manager (PCS).
Professional Cloud Developer (PCD).
Professional Cloud Administrator (PCA).
Q: What attracted to technology? My dad was an expert at almost all things mechanical and engineering. He instilled in my a great love for all things tool-related. Computer gaming attracted me in my teens to computers. I was amazed at how powerful computers were.