Latest Operationcode Podcast Episodes
Karla Gil, JavaScript programmer
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - February 26, 2020 17:32 - 23 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsShe was always attracted to coding and pursued her interest while still in the service. Upon getting out, she went to the General Assembly coding school. She spent a year helping someone with their website and then landed a job at a startup in Des Moines, Iowa, which has a worker-safety system, ...
Vincent Abruzzo, Marine
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - February 04, 2020 17:39 - 22 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsVincent started programming in the mid-90s when he stumbled across AOL punters and similar tools. At the age of 18, he joined the Marine Corps. His specialty for the Corps was "data network specialist." Vincent spent time in Bahrain and Djibouti, Africa, where he won a Navy and Marine Corps achi...
Ali Taylor-Cipolla
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - January 13, 2020 23:47 - 29 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsAli Taylor-Cipolla is married to an Air Force vet of 14 years. Among her jobs prior to studying at the Microsoft Military Spouse Training Academy, Ali was the head chef at a fraternity at Mississippi State University, and a cook at a Popeye's on a military base in Germany. She and her future hus...
Seth Lewis, 9 years Air Force
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - December 05, 2019 17:22 - 23 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsSeth spent 9 years in the Air Force, flying on transport planes to every continent but Australia. He spent his downtime on the flights studying technology, and after separating, went to Lambda School and then Hack Reactor. He's now applying his skills, especially Docker and Kubernetes, at one of...
Silas Avilez
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - November 20, 2019 23:23 - 24 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsSilas enlisted in the Army at age 17, served in logistics, and was deployed to Afghanistan. While he was in, he studied accounting, finance, and investing on his own, and when he separated, he was ready. He enrolled in the Veteran Capital program and built his sales and networking skills, and no...
Jeff Kenworthy
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - September 17, 2019 21:34 - 23 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsJeff is an Army vet who's had some tough times but he prefers to think about how far he's come. One day after moving into a Salvation Army shelter with his wife and two kids, they found out she was pregnant with twins! But now he's got a job helping victims of ransom attacks and moved his family...
Keith Fosmire
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - September 03, 2019 20:13 - 22 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsKeith Fosmire spent 10 years in the Air Force as a satellite technician and then volunteered for combat duty in the Army. He got his degree in Computer Science, is married, and now works for CoveyCS in upstate New York. He works with electronics in his spare time and his great ambition is to wor...
Gary Krause
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - August 25, 2019 21:35 - 26 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsGary is an active-duty Navy cryptologic technician, getting out of the Navy in a few months. He's a Chief Petty Officer who is now interning at SIXGEN, which is a company that does all sorts of cybersecurity tasks. Gary has a deep background in cybersecurity and knows Ruby on Rails and Python, a...
Rod Levy, Code Platoon
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - July 25, 2019 21:22 - 32 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsRod Levy and Alicia Boddy of Code Platoon, a code school for veterans, active duties, and military spouses join us for a panel discussion. Kelly Macleod, an Army veteran and Operation Code (OC) member represents the OC community. Code Platoon has recently been certified for VET-TEC, an exciting ...
Josh Carter
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - July 15, 2019 22:22 - 30 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsJosh Carter Joined with David Molina and others to launch Operation Code. Together they led the campaign to make code schools eligible for GI Bill payments, enabling our vets to train for good, high-paying jobs without college. Josh tells us how that happened, and also traces his career path fro...
Katie Swisher
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - June 09, 2019 21:46 - 23 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsKatie is a military spouse; her husband is on active duty in the Army. She works from home for a mobile app development company, as a Product Manager! in this interview Katie tells us her career history and how she came to be moving across the country to an area where she didn't know anyone, as ...
Mike Rodriguez
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - May 21, 2019 06:14 - 24 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsMike Rodriguez is an former Marine who became a Windows XP administrator in the service, and he's stayed with it. He wanted to be a tank crewman, but unfortunately his partial color blindness limited the jobs he could perform inside a tank, so he had to take a different career path, and now here...
Dick Sonderegger
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - May 13, 2019 22:59 - 42 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsDick Sonderegger has a much different story than most of our veterans -- he learned computers in the Marines during the Vietnam era. His story of HOW he got into computers is probably the best one I've ever heard, and you'll just have to listen to find it out! We shared an office for a few month...
Rami Mouro
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - May 03, 2019 22:38 - 19 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsRami Mouro was born in Syria, and came to the US in his teens. He served in the National Guard in between going to the University of Colorado at Boulder, and is currently finishing up his degree. He has an internship coming up at Qualcomm, and is especially interested in embedded systems and cyb...
Emilie Schario
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - April 22, 2019 17:15 - 28 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsEmilie is a data analyst with GitLab, and is married to an active duty military officer. She came to the profession in a non-standard way -- via a degree in Political Science from Princeton! Being a military spouse meant that she needed the ability to work remotely, since she might be moving con...
Robert E. Woods III
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - March 29, 2019 21:27 - 20 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsRobert is an Air Force veteran who's now in grad school at Columbia. He's running Banneret, a company working to create opportunities for vets by making on-the-job training eligible for GI Bill benefits. In this interview, he traces his path through ROTC, active duty in the Air Force, and curre...
Kelly MacLeod
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - March 20, 2019 00:12 - 31 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsKelly served in the Guard in Iraq and Afghanistan, learned to code via online courses and self-teaching, worked as a freelancer, and is now with Topcoder, a crowdsourcing solutions company. She talks about her career path through college, military service, getting out and being an Admin, and dec...
Colleen Schnettler
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - March 13, 2019 16:41 - 15 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsColleen is the wife of an active-duty pilot with 17 years in the service. She was getting frustrated with the career difficulties that come with the military's constant moves, and so she taught herself Ruby On Rails! Now she works from home with a variety of clients, and she could practice her n...
David Silvia Interview
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - February 27, 2019 00:21 - 18 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsDavid had no particular interest in Computer Science when he left the Marines, but he went to Mass Bay Community College and caught the bug. He transferred to Northeastern's co-op program and did two co-op gigs, one of which led to an offer for a full-time job. David talks about his journey to b...
James Fitzer Interview
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - February 18, 2019 18:18 - 33 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsIn this interview, James tells us about his path into computer software from a 10-year Army career, including a stint as Drill Instructor (hear how the movie Full Metal Jacket continues to influence DI's!). James also has a fairly unusual hobby: he wrestles professionally, in an independent orga...
Kyle Holmberg, Part 1
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - February 13, 2019 19:25 - 16 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsKyle was a developer with AutoGravity in Sept. 2018 when we conducted this interview. Since then he's moved on to a different job, which is why we titled this "Part 1." We're looking forward to catching up with him when he's settled in his new job! Kyle was enrolled in ROTC in college, but never...
Lito Villanueva interview
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - January 22, 2019 01:35 - 26 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsLito served in the Air Force and then did two terms as a contractor in networking at forward operating bases in Afghanistan. In this interview he tells what it was like maintaining the network while coming under mortar fire every day, and what his startup Battle Buddy is aiming to do for veteran...
David Molina interview
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - January 15, 2019 21:59 - 20 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsEp. 002 - David Molina is the founder of Operation Code. In this interview, he describes his Army career, how he found his way into the tech industry with no prior training, and how he started Operation Code to help veterans like him learn software and code the future.
Conrad Holloman interview
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - January 15, 2019 21:59 - 24 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsEp. 001 - Conrad Hollomon went to Berklee School of Music and originally wanted to write scores for film and TV. Finding that a tough career to enter, he moved over into video games and technology, joined ROTC, went to Afghanistan for the National Guard, and is now Executive Director of Operatio...
Conrad Hollomon interview
Operation Code interviews with vets in tech - January 15, 2019 21:59 - 24 minutes ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsEp. 001 - Conrad Hollomon went to Berklee School of Music and originally wanted to write scores for film and TV. Finding that a tough career to enter, he moved over into video games and technology, joined ROTC, went to Afghanistan for the National Guard, and is now Executive Director of Operatio...
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