Management Team

Michael R. Faster
Founder and President  Blog  LinkedIn
Mike Faster is the founder and president of Coyote Creek with more than 25 years of experience in building and leading complex technology organizations. Among other numerous high-visibility projects, Faster has served as interim chief information officer for Ariba, SpinCircuit.com, and Chemdex. Prior to founding Coyote Creek in 1998, Faster served in numerous director and management positions for leading technology companies including Apple Computer, Palm Computing, Cadence Design Systems, and Komag. Faster has a B.S. degree in management from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Kevin Szady
Co-founder and Director Technical Services  LinkedIn
Kevin Szady co-founded Coyote Creek in 1998 and is director of technical services, responsible for all technical leadership and project management. Before co-founding the company, he served as network services manager for Komag, where he oversaw a 3500-node network with 50+ servers located domestically and overseas. He carried project responsibility for all major projects that involved Microsoft Exchange email. Prior to Komag, Mr. Szady worked as a systems administrator for Westinghouse Security Electronics. He earned a B.A. in music from San Jose State University, and holds numerous MCSE certifications.
Anthony Coral
Director of Managed Services  LinkedIn
Anthony Coral joined Coyote Creek in 2000, and today is responsible for all managed services delivery. He has worked on numerous other Coyote Creek projects for a wide range of clients. Prior to joining Coyote Creek, Coral was a senior installation engineer for Franklin-Templeton, where he designed and maintained all OS builds for the company’s desktops and laptops, in addition to creating an inventory tracking method and assisting the company’s Y2K team. He also has extensive experience in the retail market. He has also completed networking, Novell administration, telecommunications, aeronautics, MCSE, MCSA, MCP, HP, and IBM courses.
Harper Mann
Director of Technical Services  LinkedIn
Harper Mann has worked on team at companies that offer commercially available IT products (HP, Cisco, Splunk, Legato/EMC, MIPS) and companies that use those products (E-Loan, CyberCash, SiteRock) so he's seen and appreciates both sides of the IT equation. His expansive credentials include product management, systems and software engineering, data center design and systems administration management delivering technical services to a wide variety of customers. Harper is technical services director and takes a strong process approach with our Linux, UNIX and open source practices emphasizing monitoring, web 2.0 service support, backups, messaging, and integration with Windows server systems.
Terri Carney
Director of Sales  LinkedIn
Terri Carney joined us in November 2009 and is responsible for all of sales for Coyote Creek. In addition to day to day leadership and management of the sales team, she spends time developing and managing partner relationships, driving revenue and creating new business opportunities through her extensive Silicon Valley and Bay Area network. Ms. Carney brings with her over 27 years of IT industry experience, which includes a broad understanding of technical and business challenges as well as extensive experience in IT solutions selling. Terri began her career "in the trenches" as a business analyst/project manager supporting enterprise business application systems before transitioning into sales. She has spent the past 13 years in senior sales management roles selling IT infrastructure solutions.
Nathan Lundberg
Systems Engineering Manager
Nathan Lundberg joined Coyote Creek Consulting in 1999 and today manages a wide range of engineering projects and ongoing managed services implementations. Lundberg has worked on major Windows Exchange migration projects and provides Exchange administration support for leading companies’ executive staff. He also has extensive expertise with Cisco Unity solutions. Prior to Coyote Creek, Lundberg served as a network systems engineer for Inacom/Vanstar Corporation, and as a systems engineer for Modis. He graduated from Chabot College and has also earned Microsoft Certified System Engineer, MCP, and Citrix Certified Administrator certifications.
Account Management
James Areias
Sr. Account Executive
James Areias began his sales career in 1999 as a fundraiser at Cal Poly. After graduation, he worked as a residential Loan Officer for both a direct lender and a brokerage firm. Jimmy joined Coyote Creek in 2007 with a focus on building new relationships and managing existing accounts to ensure Coyote Creek meets customer needs and expectations. Thisincludes being the first point of contact for clients, working with the Engineering team throughout the project scoping and proposal process, and monitoring the status of each project until completion. Jimmy has a B.S. degree in Agricultural Business from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.
Cindy Holmes
Sr. Account Executive
Cindy Holmes has been with Coyote Creek since April 2010. She started her career in Information Technology Services in 1999 as an Account Executive at Spherion and brings over 10 years of experience helping her clients resolve their most challenging IT issues. Whether it’s outsourced projects, staff augmentation or managed services, Cindy is a master at partnering with her clients to find the best solution for their needs. She has a Bachelor's degree in Communications from Chico State University.
Vince Pruneau
Sr. Account Executive
Joining Coyote Creek as an Account Manager in 2005 Vince Pruneau brings 10 years experience in software sales with Computer Associates and 10 years of hardware sales with Hewlett Packard VAR's. He has proven skills managing client relationships and complex infrastructure sales. Vince is responsible for all types of sales at Coyote Creek including developing new business and managing current customers. He also develops and maintains relationships with IT partners in the Bay Area to offer the most complete customer solutions. Vince holds sales certifications from Microsoft, VMware and Symantec and has a Bachelor's degree in Biology from the University of Northridge and an MBA in Finance from Pepperdine.
Engineers
Brett Attwel
Senior Systems Engineer
Brett Attwel is one of the newer additions to Coyote Creek. He has extensive experience in Exchange including migrations across multiple versions and upgrades to multiple versions. He is well versed in hardware and storage solutions and brings a seasoned perspective to all projects. Prior to joining Coyote Creek he spent many years in the Education sector as a Sr. Engineer for UC Davis managing their Active Directory and Exchange infrastructure. Brett has a BS degree in Geology from UC Davis.
Jim Brown
Senior Systems Engineer
Jim Brown has worked on dozens of client projects at Coyote Creek since 2000, when he joined the company from Sanwa Bank, where he served as senior network engineer. Prior to Sanwa Bank, he supervised engineering teams for Inacom Information Systems in support of the company's clients. Jim holds numerous Microsoft certifications specializing in Exchange and Active Directory; as well as certifications for Symantec, CheckPoint and Neverfail technologies. Jim has a reputation for discovering optimal solutions with careful attention to the details.
Thomas Craig
Senior Systems Engineer
Thomas Craig joined Coyote Creek in 2007 after serving in several capacities for the San Francisco Giants Baseball Club. There he was responsible for Windows system Exchange 2003, and email archiving. He also supported executive staff and traveling scouts, as well as Scottsdale, AZ spring training offices. Prior to this he served as a computer technician for the Stanislaus County MIS. Mr. Craig holds a B.S. in computer information systems from California State University at Stanislaus, as well as CompTIA A+, Microsoft, and MCSA/MCSE certifications.
Ron Erlandson
Senior Systems Engineer
Ron Erlandson has been with Coyote Creek since the early days, joining the company in 1999 from EMC Technology Services, Inc. There he served as IT manager, responsible for both data and voice systems such as a Windows NT network and Lucent voice switching, PBX, and voice-mail systems. Prior to EMC, he served as technical lead for a next-generation desktop project at G.W. Consulting (now Modis), where they migrated 3500 desktops to Windows 95 and NT for Franklin-Templeton. He also worked as technical lead for Pacific Bell Mobile Services in the San Francisco region. Mr. Erlandson holds numerous certifications from Symantec, NeverFail, Altiris, Citrix, and Microsoft MCSE+ and MCSE.
Aaron Geer
Senior Systems Engineer
Since joining Coyote Creek in 2000, Aaron Geer has worked extensively in Exchange and Active Directory environments, as well as designed and implemented server and storage solutions. Prior to Coyote Creek, Geer served as an IT consultant at Unitek and provided network administration for Kemper Computer Consultants. He has earned numerous certifications from Microsoft, Citrix, Goodlink, Neverfail, and taken courses as a Cisco Certified Network Engineer and Unified Communications Systems Engineer. He earned a B.S. degree in business administration in computer information systems from the University of Southern Indiana.
Vedran Jagodic
Senior Systems Engineer
Vedran Jagodic has extensive experience in application development and has worked on many development projects for Coyote Creek clients since joining the company in 2005. Prior to Coyote Creek he worked as an application developer for Airframe Business Software to build business management software solutions for small and mid-sized companies. He also worked in various software development capacities for TerrAlert, CenterBeam, and at Applied Materials. He holds Microsoft Solution Developer and MCP certifications. Jagodic graduated from the University of Split, Croatia with a B.S. degree in electronics.
Josh Knutkowski
Senior Systems Engineer
Josh Knutkowski joined Coyote Creek with extensive experience in a wide range of Microsoft networking, messaging, and security solutions. Previously he administered, maintained, and performed troubleshooting for large server farms across three states. He managed everything from trouble ticket escalation to provisioning new servers, installing and patching new applications, and generating documentation and best practices for ViaWest, Inc. He also gained considerable experience with Exchange migrations, Symantec Security solutions, NetApp storage, and backup and recovery solutions as a lead engineer for FORTiX, prior to Via West. Mr. Knutkowski earned a B.A. in business administration from Western Washington University.
Dave Theodore
Senior Systems Engineer
Dave Theodore brings extensive experience with global-scale IT environments. In the Operations Group at Qualys he was responsible for more than 600 production, QA and development servers (and their associated network environments) across multiple continents, creating and deploying numerous automation and monitoring solutions to maximize uptime and ensure scalability. At Conxion he designed a hardened global server operating system that could be connected directly to the internet without the need for firewalls and was replicated to all datacenters. At Chemdex/Ventro he was responsible for architecting, purchasing, implementing and supporting the company's hundreds of development, QA, staging, production, hosting and backoffice UNIX servers.
Olena Vasylevska
Senior Systems Engineer
Olena Vasylevska has deep consulting experience and a proven track record. She brings a broad range of experience in Microsoft technologies, particularly Exchange Server, and has numerous migrations under her belt gained from working at CinemaNow as a Senior Systems Engineer. She also brings expertise in Security and programming having worked with Visual Basic, Java Script and ASP.NET. She is very detail oriented and brings real focus to all of the projects she works on. Olena has a BS degree in Computer Sciences from Kryvyi Rih Technical University in the Ukraine and an MS in Information Technology from the University of Phoenix.
Stephen Westerfield
Senior Systems Engine
Stephen Westerfield joined Coyote Creek in 1999 and has focused extensively on Microsoft solution architecture design and implementation for server and networking solutions for dozens of client projects. Prior to Coyote Creek, Westerfield held system engineering positions with Inacom Corporation, GW Consulting, Adams Precision Instrumentation, and Grid Systems. He also served in the United States Army as an E-5 sergeant, stationed in the U.S. and Germany. He holds Microsoft and Symantec certifications.