About

My name is Charles “Chuck” Benedict. I am a retired technology executive and entrepreneur. I have worked in technology all of my career.

I started as an application developer maintaining COBOL applications, writing SAS and Syncsort programs to jockey data, and hacking JCL to get this software to run on IBM OS/390 mainframes and their alphabet soup of technologies (so now you can guess my age - be gentle).

A career is software development has been rewarding. Early on, I learned how to navigate the world of contracting, long before “gig economy” was in vogue. Never without a job, I took on contract work that enabled me to learn client-server design patterns, database technology, data center operations, devops, and later web development and microservices. I have written software in all kinds of languages.

Later, I helped start several businesses and advanced to the C-Suite. Budgeting, management, business development, hiring, board meetings, accounting, technology roadmaps, audits…been there, done that. The single most rewarding part of being an entrepreneur is watching the growth arc of a company. Initially, it’s just you and a few others. You do everything. You setup the future of the company and lay the groundwork for growth. Customers, employees, vendors, products, and sales. That’s what you think about. If you surround yourself with good people, magic can happen. It was never easy, but it was rewarding.

But software development and learning about technology was always my passion. I have the freedom now to explore areas of interest I never was able to before. These days, I am supporting technology education by mentoring and building tools for FIRST high school robotics programs. In particular, I am working on embedded Java tools to help FIRST software teams access cheap hardware to test their designs. So I started this blog to document this journey, and talk any other tech I find interesting.