Our people

Joe Donnelly

Joe is here for you, the customer, the prospect, anyone who needs help with SCORM, xAPI, or our products. Part customer advocate, part drill sergeant, Joe helps our customers get what they need and helps projects stay on the straight and narrow. Joe’s also seen nearly as much SCORM stuff as the SCORM Engine, since he’s been supporting it since its inception.

As milo1973 on Xbox Live, Joe is convinced that Halo and NHL 2009 are ripe for SCORM-ifying. He’s also mostly forgone Ping Pong in favor of Magic: The Gathering. Most of that isn’t accurate anymore, but Joe does still play Magic: The Gathering. He’s also very proud to be employee #1 on the Rustici tenure ladder.

Brian Rogers

Brian implemented the SCORM Content Player and the SCORM Engine against an LMS at his former company Evolve Learning. He was so easy to work with and understood things so well that when he came back looking to work with us years later, we couldn’t ignore him. Now Brian provides that same service to our customers. Brian’s built his own LMSs, and he’s seen the inner-workings of countless customer LMSs.

When it comes to xAPI, Brian is a real pioneer. He even chooses to spend his time off building his own xAPI projects…he’s even xAPI-ified Minecraft!

Brian is the team lead for the DevSecOps team.

Ben Clark

When Ben became available on the job market, we jumped at the chance to get him to join us. He’s a legitimate challenge to Mike Rustici’s throne as SCORM wizard and – bonus! – came complete with collar. (We’re not sure he owns a t-shirt, actually.) Ben’s work with Mike on the ADL Technical Working Group had impressed us for years and as SCORM moves through a necessary evolution, Ben adds to our bandwidth on standards development activities. Heck, he wrote the first draft of xAPI.

Ben is what some folks might call a Yankee and his trips to the Franklin office have involved adventures in grits, fried catfish and turnip greens. He’s also a serious guy who only has one face for the camera, despite David’s best efforts to provoke a different reaction.

Tammy Rutherford

Tammy knew what SCORM was several years before she had even heard of Rustici Software, and she’s not even a standards geek. (For standards geeks, see Clark, Ben and Miller, Brian.)

Tammy also instills fear in Rustici Software employees because she can run, or swim, or bike, forever. We mean it. She’s an Iron(wo)Man many times over! It is this persistence and attention to detail that attracted us to Tammy in the first place. As the Managing Director of Rustici Software, Tammy leads our company with a passionate commitment to caring for our people and customers.

Chris Tompkins

Some might say that Chris, our director of sales, is the most innovative ping pong player in the office, which is saying something at Rustici. During the colder months, he’s regularly out on the slopes snowboarding and always looks forward to our ski trips. Chris also happens to also be our Rustici bird expert (see Exhibit A, Exhibit B) and enjoys crafting super original names for them, like Greg (I, II, III, etc.) and Henry.

Whether you’re looking to learn more about eLearning technology and standards, for help with Rustici products or to discover new trick shots you didn’t know you needed, chances are Chris is your guy. He spends his days chatting with customers from around the globe to help tailor our products to their needs, and he leads the business team, even though our sales process isn’t typical.

Andy Whitaker

Andy is the office jokester — ask him about his puns! (Actually, you don’t have to ask him. He’ll tell them to you. Over and over and over again.) He also collects rubber animal head masks (like this) and his current collection consists of heads of a horse, squirrel, kitten and german shepherd.

He’s a music fanatic, and currently working on creating playlists to represent his life in decades. He’s feeling pretty good about how ‘My 30s’ is turning out. We’re so happy for you, Andy!

Andy recently started eating breakfast, and he’s thinking about working out. Andy has stopped eating breakfast and never took the leap into exercising. “It was a fail,” he says.

Andy helps people understand what SCORM and xAPI are. He’s considered a “salesperson”, but we don’t do sales the way most companies do.

Brian Miller

Brian rivals even the stalwarts of the Rustici halls for his pedantry which makes him a perfect fit at a company focused on standards and specifications. Since joining Rustici he’s participated in the xAPI working group, the cmi5 working group, and leading ADL’s Catapult project.

He spends most of his free time watching his three daughters at various sporting events, including gymnastics and dance, but mostly soccer which he also coaches with his wife, and even occasionally still gets to play.

Brian is the Senior Director of Engineering, which as far as he can tell means he now has to pay attention to his calendar a lot more while at the same time is never allowed to code something that has to be done by a deadline.

Ryan Donnelly

Yep. It happened. We hired another Donnelly! And yes, they’re related. Ryan is Joe’s younger (more handsome) brother. Rustici Software just got much more awesome.

Before joining us, Ryan worked in the music industry for 12 years. Click Check out his Spotify if you want to keep up with what he’s into these days.

Ryan is part of our client support team alongside his brother Joe.

Jim Ingram

Jim might just be the most normal one of all of us—he’s a great guy, and you always know what you’re getting with him but it’s all fun and games until you ask him to drive you to Chipotle, and then forget you asked and drive yourself. Of course, that wouldn’t be a thing that would happen at Rustici Software! It just seems like a thing he might not like.

Jim gets credit for starting the ‘Rusticians with Bears’ thing around here. What started as an inside joke somehow became our official company mascot, and if you ever tour our office, you’ll see a few bears throughout.

Jim likes reading sci-fi and biographies, he likes playing board games, and he plays guitar badly (he said so himself.) Sometimes, if we’re lucky, he’ll bring his guitar in on a Friday and strum around for a bit during our loosely-held late afternoon happy hour.

Jim used to work on various products as a software developer, but now he’s a product manager.

Chris Hooks

Chris decided he hadn’t had enough of Rustici, and joins the team again for his second year. A Nashville native, he joins us from Miami University of Ohio.

He’s baaack! Chris interned with us for two summers, and worked part-time with us for a third, and then finally decided he ought to join us full time post-college graduation. We’re excited to have him here as an official Rustician, where he spends his time as a DevSecOps engineer.

These things are still true of Chris: in his spare time, he enjoys working with cars as well as riding his motorcycle. Additionally, he has dabbled in making his own electronic music. He has a soft spot for dogs, especially Corgis and other short-legged varieties. A newer hobby that he has started to get into is snowboarding. (Update, June 2017: When asked how the snowboarding was going, Chris said, “minus the broken leg this past January, it’s going great!” Hmm. Broken leg. Sounds great indeed…. keep practicing, Chris. ? He says he’ll probably join in on the annual Rustici co-vacationing ski trip, and promises to try and not break his leg if he accompanies the group. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.)

Chris claims to be an adequate juggler, and might be the only juggling Rustician! We’ll put this to the test and report back. Stay tuned!

Kyle Patmor

We’re pretty sure that Kyle is the only Rustician that regularly keeps up with Sri Lankan politics, and he has a good reason.

Before joining us, Kyle spent a decade in Sri Lanka. He was teaching English and computer classes in a nonprofit school that he and his friends started. Yep. They started a school.

He considers himself a homebody, even with a passport full of stamps. When not playing My Little Pony with his daughter, or getting beaten at video games by his son, he loves to read and catch up on his Netflix queue.

Kyle is helping us do Engine integrations, and we couldn’t be happier to have him.

Catherine Colligan

Catherine worked with Laura at two previous jobs, and when Laura was looking to hire someone to work alongside her in the accounting department, she knew that Catherine was exactly who she wanted to hire. And boy are we glad that Catherine agreed to come hang out with us here at Rustici! As our accountant, Catherine keeps our books in tip-top shape and makes sure all of our money (coming in and going out) is right where it needs to be.

Catherine tried skiing once, and has since passionately vowed to never do it ever again. Instead, she’s fallen head-over-heels in love with snowmobiling, and gets as many runs in as she can each year on our annual co-vacationing trip. She also has a great poker face and has been known to come out victorious after a rousing Rustici game of Exploding Kittens.

When she’s not at work, she spends her time with her 5 year old son, helping to coach his baseball team (he also likes bowling and soccer), and cheering on both college and pro football (her teams are Alabama and Dallas). She also loves Broadway shows, which is another good indicator that she fits right in here at Rustici.

Ryan Pfeiffer

Ryan was born in a small town in Indiana (population 3,000). Chasing a girl (his now wife) brought him to Nashville. Ryan is most passionate about his family, but he also really likes sports (Everton soccer, Cardinals baseball, and Hoosiers for anything college.) He very loosely identifies as a foodie and a beer snob, which just means he prefers IPAs to Bud Lights.

Ryan claims that there’s nothing really weird or terribly interesting about himself, which has made him realize he needs to pick up a hobby or two. (He’s open to suggestions!) His claim to fame? He’s the great-great-great nephew of Grandpa Jones.

Ryan will be working closely with our customers as an account manager, and we’re sure that our customers will like him just as much as we do.

Tara Morey

We knew Tara would have no problem making herself at home here when we saw her eyes light up at the mention of our annual co-vacationing ski trip. She got engaged in Vail and honeymooned in Banff, so it seems like there’s a pretty good chance she’ll join us on the slopes during our yearly trip. Not only does she love to ski, but she plays games—round of ping pong, competitive card games or the latest video game—she’s in!

Tara works in an area of our office that we fondly refer to as Friendship Hall. It also seems to be the headquarters to a new and quickly growing cat lovers club. Tara’s cat is named Cole Porter, a.k.a. Cat King Cole, and Tara is the third Rustician in Friendship Hall to proudly claim an affinity for felines. Friendship Feline Fan Club, anyone?

As our Senior Marketing Manager, she leads the charge on our general marketing needs including (but not limited to) managing our content, website and events.

Avery Laster

You may not have heard, but Avery is probably the most beloved Rustician here. After all, part of her role is making sure we all get paid, so naturally, we have heart eyes for all of her accounting responsibilities.

Avery has two young daughters, so she doesn’t have as much time for her favorite pastime anymore: sleep. When she’s not dreaming about missed ZZZs, she loves spending time with her family and friends and catching up on her favorite TV shows.

There’s just one little problem in the accounting team. Avery is a passionate Auburn football fan. Which is all fine and dandy except for the fact that Catherine Colligan is a die-hard Alabama fan. In their friendly on-going team rivalry, Catherine is ahead, but who’s keeping score!

While Avery swore she’d never be an accountant, choosing to go into pre-med instead, we’re pretty happy that her college accounting class clicked as a career choice, and she’s part of the Rustici team.

Reed McLean

Reed has the same name as Reid Wiggins. So now we have Reid, and Reeeed (emphasis on the ‘eeee’).

“My main hobby is making noise,” he proudly told me, and does so on the bass guitar, upright bass and keyboard. As far as musicians go, we have quite a few of those around here now (not so shocking for an office located in Nashville, I suppose) and the addition of Reed has me believing that my dream of hosting a Rustici jam sesh night is closer to becoming true! His love for music doesn’t stop at playing. He also really enjoys trading listening recommendations, so if you’re looking for some fresh tunes, he’s your guy.

I don’t have a great segue for this next fact, so I’ll just say it. His favorite celebrity chef is Guy Fieri, which I find to be fantastic.

Reed says he is clumsy and jumpy and scares easily, which is good news for Chris Tompkins (our in-house scarer) and mostly just bad news for Reed.

Reed’s an engineer on the DevSecOps team, and we’re really quite pleased to have him here.

Josh White

In his life, Josh has worked as the vintner’s farmhand at le Clos de la Meslerie vineyard in Vouvray, France and stayed with a pilot in Sweden who offered to fly him to Goa, India if he was willing to sit in the plane’s jump seat for the 13 hour flight—he said yes. And those are only the stories he shared when I made him narrow his expansive travel memories down to some of his top moments!

Travels aside, Josh describes himself as a jack of many trades who can do a lot of things poorly, including juggling and poi (which is fire spinning, if like me, you weren’t aware.) He has two dogs, enjoys rock climbing, and offered up a piece of advice at the end of our time together that I loved so much, I made him type it out as to not mince his words.

“There are a million reasons you can come up with for why not to do something. But you’ll find if you just do it, the reasons aren’t as many or as daunting as you imagined.”

Josh is a software developer for us, and we are so glad that he chose Rustici Software as his latest adventure.

Luke Wiedeman

Luke is a Rustici-unicorn in that he does not share his name with anyone else, which feels rare and special these days. He’s a brand new Nashvillian, having just moved here from Maryland where he was born and raised.

Working at Rustici comes with a certain set of perks, one of which is our drink refrigerator, which I keep stocked with over 30 varieties of beverages. When I gave Luke a tour of our office, we stopped at the refrigerator, where Luke informed me he mostly drinks water. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I think there’s a chance he expands his beverage repertoire in the next 6 months and will follow up at that time. Stay tuned.

Luke’s first day in the office coincided with our most elaborate Thanksmas celebration yet. I can confidently say no one has ever received a more extravagant welcome!

Luke is going to be doing some QA work for us, and we are really just thrilled to have him here.

Philip Fallin

Philip Fallin has come waltzing into our lives to help us with sales. We mean that literally… Philip is a competitive dancer. West Coast Swing, country, ballroom, you name the dance, Philip knows it. The things Philip loves about dance make him great at supporting our prospective customers: he’s passionate about getting to know people and building relationships.

Before working at Rustici, Philip served as an account manager and salesperson at technology companies. He’s a great matchmaker; talented not only at helping folks figure out the right product for them but sometimes helping them find their soulmate–he’s matched two couples who’ve married!

Cameron Gray

Cameron Gray is a builder. At work, he builds relationships with clients and he’s joined our team as a Client Success Manager. At home, he builds furniture. Last year, he and his wife gutted and renovated their 1962 ranch in Franklin and in his spare time, he builds anything from a coffee table to a record console. He loves figuring out how to do something and then sharing how to do it with other people, which will make him great at serving our clients.

Cameron is a serious Arsenal fan. He’s played pick up in an adult soccer league and enjoys returning to his hometown of Atlanta to watch Atlanta United. He’s also passionate about cycling, which is his hands down his favorite hobby. He has big plans to bike into our office each morning during the warmer months.

Liz Poston

Liz is a great listener. With her background in therapy, she loves diving into people’s stories and motivations. No wonder she makes for a great office manager as she’s always in tune with everyone’s needs.

Liz spends part of her free time preparing organic food for Dinner Belle Nashville, a local meal delivery service. She’s an expert at chopping vegetables and peels back the layers of an onion just as easily as she asks you questions to know you on a deeper level.

Liz is also a musician and songwriter. In fact, she sang us a song about “why we should hire her” which won over our hearts. Although she shares her name with the lizard, Liz is actually most fond of the manatee.

Joshua Turner

Joshua is trying out a few different hobbies — running, weightlifting, billiards, you name it. He’s even programming a computer to play chess, but he doesn’t describe himself as an enthusiast yet (He says he needs to “keep up with it before I can start bragging.”).

After completing some impressive renovations to their house, Joshua and his wife have created a resort-like feel with a giant deck complete with a hot tub and a koi pond. After putting their kiddos to sleep, they routinely get in a round of cue ball into their garage-turned-game room. Sounds like Joshua might just become the next pool shark of Columbia?!

Joshua is a full-stack developer that works on the Delight team, providing support to keep our customers happy.

Michael Schuetze

As a kid growing up in the small village of Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, Michael wanted to be an astronaut. Later it was the thought of working on the Mars Rovers that shifted his interest to software engineering and led him to pursue his degree at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.

Michael describes himself as a jack of all trades, master of none, letting curiosity be his guide. He’s chock full of weird talents and strange skills. He can recite the alphabet backwards faster than he can forward. He also shared that he can spell the longest word in the dictionary, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis – call me impressed!

Michael is constantly listening to music and you’ll typically find him with a set of headphones on dancing in place. Spotify can’t even categorize his music taste as he loves all genres. Michael is a software developer working on SCORM Cloud, and we’re thrilled to have him ‘keepin’ it fresh’ here at Rustici Software.

Lara Abdurazak

Lara grew up in XinJiang province in China, moved to Beijing for college and job opportunities and has spent the last few years in the States. She can speak an impressive 4 languages, including English, Mandarin Chinese, Turkish and her native tongue, Uyghur which is one of the turkic languages spoken by Uyghur people living in XinJiang China. She says the biggest culture shock is the lack of spicy food. She frequently orders the hottest flavor on the menu, which might make most people sweat, but it is nothing for Lara.

Food aside, Lara enjoys spending time with her husband and her two young sons. She loves roller coasters and is looking forward to when her sons meet the height requirements to be able to join her on the rides. In her downtime, she finds beauty rituals for skincare to be very therapeutic. Part of her job is to be nit-picky, and we’re happy to have Lara join our team to quality check our software products.

Joseph Marino

Joseph grew up in New Jersey, went to school at Southern Methodist University in Texas and recently relocated to Tennessee. He studied finance and shifted his career to software development as he enjoys seeing the connection between the work you put in and clear results of your contribution. We’re happy to have Joseph as an engineer on the DevSecOps team.

Joseph admits that he’s absorbed in all things tennis—watching it, reading about it, thinking about it, you name it. He is looking to join a local Tennis club to get back into playing himself. Joseph also has a crazy story of how he camped out for cheap Wimbledon tickets. After 3 days waiting outside, he was able to see star athletes like Roger Federer and Andy Murray compete in the 2017 championship.

Besides tennis, Joseph also enjoys listening to indie/alternative music and reading Japanese comics. Sometimes he even watches Chinese sitcoms to brush up on his Mandarin Chinese which he studied in college.

Dottie Lindsey

We’ve always wanted someone who’s de-FRIGHT-ful on the team! An avid horror fan, Dottie spent many a fall season as a scare actor at Halloween Horror Nights, but you may know her better as the “terrifying person chasing me with a chainsaw” (be sure to ask her how to get the best revving noise) or the “rat lady.” Did you know that it takes a lot of work reading people to pull off the best scares?

When she’s not covered in varying amounts of fake blood, Dottie enjoys defying gravity and improving her aerial silks skills. In fact, one of her favorite tricks is performing dangerous front flips. 

Dottie brings a wealth of software development experience to Rustici, including seven years working with SCORM and xAPI. She’ll be putting her knowledge and people-reading skills to good use as a developer at Rustici. Don’t worry, her chainsaw skills probably won’t be necessary. 

Alicia Pack

Alicia knew from a young age that she wanted to be a writer when she grew up. In fact, she wrote a book before 2nd-grade, and her first article was published in the local newspaper by 3rd. She’s even working on her own young adult novel trilogy. Her undergrad is in radio, television and film, and she has a master’s degree in mass communications. 

Every year, Alicia volunteers as a reporter for the Daily Dragon at the annual Dragon Con convention in Atlanta. She brings a comical writing style in her interviews and panel recaps of popular shows like “Firefly” (RIP) and “Games of Thrones.” But her celebrity status doesn’t stop there. Alicia was an extra in numerous movies and television shows, including “Captain America: Civil War,” “Drop Dead Diva,” “Teen Wolf” and “The Watch.”

We’re happy to have her as a content marketing manager and author for the cmi5 CATAPULT best practices guide.

Nolan McDonald

We knew Nolan was one of us when he casually talked about robots, skiing and bad jokes during his welcome breakfast. The big Rustici three. He loves art, but painting takes a long time. Instead of picking up a brush, he spent nearly his entire high school senior year learning to code so he could construct a robot to create murals for him. Later, he realized he’d built a giant wall plotter. But what he really created was a strong feeling of accomplishment in himself that sparked the desire to work as a software developer. 

And we gained another skier! When he’s not on the slopes, Nolan spends his time playing a variety of different video games because, to him, “games are an art form.” You’ll also find Nolan listening to records or struggling to keep his growing collection of house plants alive.

Nolan joins our Delight team supporting our SCORM Cloud customers. Be sure to bring your best — or absolute worst — dad jokes when chatting with him.

Becca Lappe

You could say Becca dabbles in a little bit of everything. She has run three half marathons, played rugby in high school and college and is an artist at heart. As a commissioned artist, Becca’s focus is primarily on photorealism and using colored pencils, paint and pastel to really make her artwork come alive.

And like most Rusticians, Becca has an absolute love for all things sci-fi and fantasy. In fact, her fondness for Star Wars is so great that it inspired her to name her daughter Rey. On the fantasy side, her being the same age as Harry Potter when the books debuted has left a lasting impact. They helped her become an avid reader of everything from Nora Roberts to futuristic murder mysteries.

Becca works on Rustici’s accounting team creating invoices and maintaining relationships with our customers. The next time you’re chatting with her, be sure to also ask for her book recommendations. She’s always happy to share one of her favorite titles.

Elizabeth Mohr

We knew we couldn’t throw away our shot at having Elizabeth join Rustici. Previously, Elizabeth spent 10 years teaching elementary students in a variety of grades and settings. Ready for a transition, she couldn’t resist taking inspiration from her favorite musical and fandom, “Hamilton,” and so she took her shot at being on the team where it all happens. In fact, Elizabeth loves “Hamilton” so much, she rewrote a song for her cover letter. When not rocking out to musicals, Elizabeth enjoys cooking, learning about different personality types, doing yoga on her office mat and discussing brackets ranking the best songs (“Ms. Jackson” by OutKast) and the worst songs (“Chop Suey!” by System of a Down) of the ‘90s and ‘00s. 

Elizabeth is a Client Success Manager with the account management team. If you’re lucky enough to have her on your account, you’ll find it’s hard not to smile and catch a touch of her passionate, positive and enthusiastic energy.

Matt Byrd

Whether it’s a Class I or a Class IV whitewater rapid, Matt Byrd knows how to go with the flow. As a raft guide on the Ocoee River for about six years, he can handle whatever twists and turns he encounters. Matt doesn’t guide professionally anymore, but he still spends as much time as he can out on the water kayaking and rafting.

Since he’s always wanted to help people, Matt earned a degree in environmental science and spent several years working with geographic mapping software where he discovered a love for programming. Matt decided to join Rustici because he’d be able to combine two of his favorite things: helping as many people as possible and programming. 

Matt is a welcome addition to the delight team with Joe and Ryan and is now an adopted Donnelly brother. While he has big ping pong shoes to fill, he aspires to help make your job easier and navigate any questions with the same care as the Donnellys do.

Cameron Cohu

Words that make Rusticians perk up: I built a video game. And it only gets more exciting from there: Cameron won a Super Smash Bros. local tournament. This love for video games helped steer him toward a high school introduction to programming class and pursuing a career as a software developer. 

When he’s not playing video games or the guitar at a solid “mediocre” level, Cameron is passionate about traveling and says some of his favorite adventures were experiencing other cultures and talking with people from other countries. In fact, he spent two weeks in Japan as part of a student exchange program where he gave presentations about American schools while speaking Japanese. Cameron has also been to Honduras, eastern Europe, a semester abroad in western Europe and many parts of the U.S. 

Cameron is very logical and analytical with a strong desire to learn all the things, which makes him a natural fit to work on the Rustici Engine team as a software developer.

Peter Overton

We knew Peter would fit right in on his second day when he was roped into work shenanigans and didn’t ask questions. Instead, he prepared and nailed a Steve “The Rock” Jobs impersonation. Shenanigans aside, we’re hoping that Peter will round out our Rustici rock band since he plays multiple instruments, including the accordion, and went to school for music and audio. These days, he jams for fun.

Peter is always learning something new. What that something is ranges from researching LED history and ancient rope making to smelting metals in a microwave and what various pipes sticking out of the ground are for. He thinks people are missing out on discovering the infrastructure around us and how it all works.

Before Rustici, Peter worked in music production and audio engineering for safety training. Both positions honed his people and listening skills to better understand the client’s needs and provide the best results. Putting his ear for helping to good use, Peter joins the sales team providing answers and stellar solutions.

Natalia Bearden

Our Rustici band now has a venue! And on a peninsula to boot. When Natalia’s not hard at work hunting code bugs, she spends time keeping the bugs at bay on her property in the Pacific Northwest. Land that she and her husband are transforming into a space for music festivals and camping, which are among the things that have shaped her life. After all, she bumped into her now-husband during a chance meeting at a music festival; one that neither of them even planned to attend. 

We’re excited to see Natalia’s tennis skills translate into killer ping pong moves as Rusticians are somewhat known for their pong talents. You’ll also find her playing volleyball, reading science fiction and fantasy and speeding down the ski slopes. 

Natalia joins the Quality Assurance team as a Software QA Engineer, which is a role she’s been training for since preschool when she helped her mother, a teacher, grade papers. Natalia thrives on helping like-minded people and adding a brick to support and enhance their building.

Nathaniel Sop

We’re slowly working our way to being able to host a Rustici competitive video game tournament and music festival. And Nathaniel is the perfect addition to both lineups. He’s been playing computer and video games since he was 3 years old and enjoys a variety of games, including World of Warcraft, BioShock and Resident Evil. When he was about 13, Nathaniel was even considered one of the best Call of Duty players after beating a professional gamer. If he had to give an on-the-spot presentation on anything under the sun, he’d wax poetic on all things not to do in his favorite game, League of Legends.

His love of video games helped him transition to a love of playing music when he picked up the Rocksmith video game that helps teach players the guitar. Now, Nathaniel both plays and makes rock, emo hip hop and alternative music. 

Nathaniel joins our Content Controller team as a software developer and will be regularly working in Vue.

Ashton Garcia

If you’re looking for Ashton outside the office, you’ll likely find him hanging off the side of indoor rock climbing walls or hopping around bouldering. While rock climbing is a newer hobby for him, it’s one that bit Ashton hard. But that’s really no surprise since he’s most comfortable in nature. He often spends his weekends camping, fishing, kayaking and photographing huge spiders. 

When asked what topic he could give a quick presentation on with zero prep time, it was a split between fitness and all things Lord of the Rings. The next time you need someone to carry a ring to Mordor, he is probably your guy. 

Ashton has enjoyed the challenge of programming from an early age and has spent many a day playing computer and video games. He’s always known he wanted to work in tech, and Ashton’s desire to make cool and innovative things through programming will come in handy in his role as a software developer on the Rustici Engine team.

Nick Carver

It’s no secret that Rusiticians love food, so when Nick shared that he gave a 20-minute presentation to his friends about the nuances between dips and sauces, we listened. Well, that and Nick’s mechanical engineering background where he designed and tested projects. He made the career move to software engineer because what you’re building can be nearly instantaneous. And that’s really magical to him. 

Nick is an avid disc golfer but also spends time playing volleyball and pickleball. One of his greatest accomplishments, so far, isn’t his sports or secret sauces, but that he’s kept two plants alive, one of which he stole from a roommate who abandoned it. As a software developer, Nick brings that team spirit and dedication to the SCORM Cloud team by working his magic to bring even more improvements. 

If you’re still wondering what Nick’s dips thesis is, he proclaims that a dip is cooked and chemically changed, dressings have a lot of mixed ingredients and a sauce is about the salt content.

Cody Johnson

If these were the days of yore, Cody would probably be classified as a swashbuckling cobbler. He used to fence and would be happy to give you a rundown of the sport as a whole. And with fancy fencing footwork comes the need for peculiar footwear. Cody loves browsing online shoe closets and snatching up the more unique styles, like funky designs with doughnuts and video game controllers. 

Like many kids, Cody loved video games and thought that becoming a game developer would be the ultimate cool career. He majored in computer science in college where he discovered that was his true passion. He still plays video games often and uses that time to reconnect with friends who’ve moved away. When he’s not trying to beat his friends at games, Cody is cheering on the Nashville Predators hockey team.

Cody is a software engineer on the SCORM Cloud team working on implementing new and improved features. Just don’t challenge him to Connect 4, he’s super competitive in that game specifically.

Tim Verrelli

Voted Rustici Best in Show, Tim Verrelli is no stranger to being a developer and to dog shows. Since the ‘90s, Tim has trained a variety of dogs in agility and often judges agility competitions. In fact, he’s judged dog shows in all 50 states and around a dozen foreign countries, including Australia, Spain and Costa Rica. Which makes for a lot of miles on the road! To pass the time, he and his wife enjoy listening to LitRPG audiobooks that are filled with action, monsters and mysterious, unknown worlds.

When he’s not traveling, Tim is hard at work caring for his stable of 3 cats, 5 dogs, 8 cows, 30 chickens and 40 sheep. Feeding the cows holds an extra special place for him, and he’s trained them to follow him. 

Tim is on our Rustici Engine team as a senior developer. And if you want a challenge, try to stump him at movie and random trivia. Knowing the answers is his superpower.

Ryan Sunde

Ryan has all the ingredients for a Rustici recipe for success: a solid stance on a subject, strong sentiments for sci-fi and packed with product experience. Ryan loves salad spinners, so much so, he can rant for minutes about how convenient they are for cleaning fruits and veggies and why it’s the most underrated kitchen appliance. Salad spinners aside, Ryan also loves baking with his family. But there’s one thing he can’t do in the kitchen: find anything. Just ask his wife.

Outside the kitchen, Ryan enjoys escaping into a good science fiction story or playing video games. Every Sunday, he faithfully cheers on the Detroit Lions despite being perpetually disappointed by them. 

Ryan approaches being a Content Controller product manager with the same zest and enthusiasm as he does for ordinary kitchen gadgets. Ryan worked in a variety of positions at his last company and carved out a product position for himself.

Jeremy Haase

Spaghettification. Magic the Gathering. Lord of the Rings. These are all things that pique our interest at Rustici, and they’re all things that Jeremy finds amusing. Originally a physics major, Jeremy was fascinated by topics like dark matter, dark energy and how you’ll become spaghettified if you happen to take a wrong turn into a black hole. Lucky for us, he took a right turn into a computer science class and found himself much more engaged with computers. 

When not picturing everyday objects being pressed into a single spaghetti thread, Jeremy enjoys losing himself in all manner of magical fantasy worlds, including in the pages of books, as the lead in video games and watching movies.

Jeremy is a software developer on the Rustici Engine team and a great addition to our MTG draft. You may also find him waxing philosophical about the parking lot–and hear his wife pleading with him to stop.

Caleb Hall

Announcing The Honorable Caleb Hall! As a respectable young lad, Caleb was bestowed Kentucky’s highest award a citizen can receive: Kentucky Colonel. He admits that, as cool as it sounds, a lot of people are Kentucky Colonels. 

Like all respectable lads, Caleb loves books and often reads a couple different ones at a time. His favorite genres are philosophy, theology and literary fiction. He has a soft spot for speculative fiction, including anything from The Lord of the Rings to something old with a Latin title to an apocalyptic novel. When not reading or doing what Kentucky Colonels do on the daily, Caleb enjoys goofing off with his son, spoiling their gerbil and fixing things around the house.

Previously, he was a sales support specialist working through the whole sales cycle. As a Client Success Manager at Rustici, Caleb helps our customers make the most of their software and would love to hear your best puns on your next call with him.

Devanie Volk

Winter is a lifestyle in Minnesota, and Devanie played hockey as a forward growing up. But don’t worry, as a Client Success Manager, she’ll only be checking on you, not into you. These days, she enjoys watching hockey with her family, learning all she can about home flipping and DIY and reading non-fiction, like biographies and self help books. 

When she’s ready to put down her DIY tools and keyboard, Devanie loves to travel to places like San Francisco and Montana. And she’s no stranger to a little adventure. From driving up a one way mountain road to 11,000 feet sans guardrail to ziplining through treetops, you could say that she enjoys seeing beautiful country with a few terrifying moments thrown in. 

In her previous role, Devanie worked for a Rustici Content Controller customer and helped with their content migration. As a Client Success Manager working primarily with Content Controller customers, she’ll be able to help with your migration and questions.

John Griner

John is a nostalgic gamer and likes to play on retro consoles and emulators. He even passed his enthusiasm to his two children, who compete on old-school versions of Pokémon and Super Smash Bros.

He also enjoys honing his culinary skills. And like several other Rusticians, he likes his food spicy—but unlike our other in-house “hot heads,” he prefers using peppers over hot sauce. He’s attempted to grow his own fiery peppers, but hasn’t had much luck (although, he still lets his daughter water the withered plants in hopes they’ll come back to life). Not everyone in his family can tolerate the heat, though, so he cooks two meals each night—an adult meal and a less-spicy, kid-friendly version.

John is a software developer working on Content Controller, and we’re thrilled to have him “spicing” things up here at Rustici Software.

Grant Scritsmier

Grant was born on moving day. No, that’s not some new holiday. He was born in one house, and the very next day, he moved to another house, making him born to move. He’s since moved nine times before making Tennessee his 10th. During that time, Grant was given the game Starcraft II that came with a map editor. He started there before moving on to building mini games and loved the idea of creating his own game sometime. That gift moved him down the path to becoming a developer.

Outside of building and tinkering with software, you can find Grant 3D printing things, like custom clips and interesting masks, or fighting off wasp infestations. He is still an active gamer, preferring first person games with friends or strategy games. He’s also really interested in learning new languages and has been studying Japanese.

We’re glad he moved on over to Rustici to join the Content Controller team as a developer working on new improvements and fixing bugs.

Ryan Shea

What do philosophy of quantum mechanics, Elizabethan sonnet writing and bug zapping have in common? They’re all things Ryan Shea enjoys! From middle school to high school, he was most interested in learning physics, and he even taught chemistry. While most people in the sciences jump straight to the math, Ryan enjoys reading about the principles and finding the meaning and “why” behind it all the best.

When he’s not reading about science, Ryan enjoys creative writing. He’s found that short poem writing matches his humorous style best as he’s a bit of a constant editor.

While he has a long-running love of physics, Ryan has also been interested in coding since his dad gave him a computer when he was younger. He was in robotics while in high school, and his college senior thesis was on molecular modeling in Python. We’re glad he found a love of coding and is part of our QA team as a Software Development Engineer.

Noah Bond

Trying to nail down Noah’s hobbies and interests is a little like herding cats, which is a fitting comparison since he’s an animal lover. So much so that animal husbandry is one of his hobbies. He has rehabilitated betta fish, rescued a leopard gecko and even created aquarium designs. A few of his other past hobbies include 3D printing, car audio systems, cars in general and tending to his large plant collection.

However, enjoying computers and playing video games have both been consistent hobbies ever since Noah was young. At around 11, he was playing “Counter-Strike” and had a member of the gaming community introduce him to writing modifications. He then transitioned to creating Flash games and even published a few. This interest in code writing helped him decide what he wanted to do as a career.

Noah joins the delight team as a developer support engineer working with customers to answer their support questions and help squash their bugs.

Josh Darpino

Josh is the Rustician we were looking for! He brings a little bit of everything to the table: a deep love for Star Wars, a creative side and the ability to take a project and run with it. If you ever have a need for an in-depth reciting of Star Wars and/or The Skywalker Saga, Josh is here to help you out. He also enjoys being the one behind the camera for both movies and photography.

Josh has gone the distance and crossed the finish line for races anywhere from 5Ks to half marathons. Most mornings, you’ll find him training for his next competition. And his enthusiasm for running will serve him well if he ever falls into one of the post-apocalyptic movies he enjoys.

When he’s not running toward a personal best, Josh keeps the pace for both the product and marketing teams and makes sure they’re heading in the right direction for releases. As the Product Marketing Manager, you’ll likely see him in calls to help be the internal voice of our customers.

Sean Moore

You know how when you first meet some people, you just know they’re truly a kind, caring person? That sentiment describes Sean to a T and is one of the many reasons we’re lucky to have him join our SCORM Cloud team as a developer!

Sean has always enjoyed a good technical challenge and building things. This isn’t much of a surprise since his grandfather was a carpenter and general contractor who built 500 homes. Sean spent his early years tinkering in his grandpa’s workshop and loved building with LEGO. It was a natural transition from blocks in grandpa’s shop to becoming a developer. Prior to Rustici, he worked in eLearning for six years, the fintech industry and even freelanced for awhile.

These days, you’ll never find him far from his trusty sidekick the fluffy T-Rex, AKA Vinnie the Pomeranian. When Vinnie isn’t supervising Sean’s code updates, he’s often found listening to Sean play guitar or sniffing at his latest culinary creations. We’re happy to have Sean – and Vinnie – on our team!

Bridget Johnson

Watch out Chris Hooks! He’s not the only intern who’s back. Before her Rustici return, Bridget originally went to college to be a civil engineer with the goal of designing roller coasters. Turns out, she’d rather build RollerCoaster Tycoon. After falling in love with her first programming class, she switched majors and never looked back. After college, Bridget let her love of space shine and worked in unmanned aerial vehicles for eight years.

But weaving lines of code isn’t her only crafty skill. Bridget has her own crochet business on the side making a little bit of everything from baskets and blankets to wall hangings with logos. The rest of her time is spent fixing up her new house and exploring the great outdoors of the Pacific Northwest.

While Bridget’s intern days predate Content Controller, she’s happy to add her coding skills and knowledge of days long gone (including playing Oregon Trail in the office) to the team as a software engineer.

Steve Ulfelder

As a wee lad, Steve started playing video games and became hooked, like many of his fellow Rusticians. His high school advisor fostered that love and gave him a Java textbook. From there, Steve started making his own games, and while he admits they may have been bad, he really enjoyed the programming. That led to him attending a summer camp for game modding and coding and where he worked during the summers while studying game programming in college.

He balances the time behind a screen with a lot of time outdoors, including camping, lounging in a hammock and having fun at music festivals. The genre doesn’t matter, his tastes run the gamut from Grateful Dead to experimental bass music. Steve enjoys puzzles, woodworking and reading every chance he gets.

Lucky for us, Steve transitioned out of games after college and into other types of programming. As a DevSecOps engineer, he works on internal tools and supporting hosted infrastructure.

Noah Erikson

Noah is a bit of a tinkerer and big on discovery. In college, he taught himself a foreign language to test out of that requirement and free up his class schedule. Once when he wasn’t really into the background music in a game he was playing, he set out to change the songs to ones he knew. After some serious research and mod tutorials, Noah’s soundtrack was born.

When he isn’t researching new subjects, Noah really enjoys watching and reading about time travel, especially when it’s combined with a lot of action. If he could do anything for a day? He’d try his hand at being a stunt person wearing a motion capture suit in an action-packed time travel movie.

While his time travel knowledge may not come in handy as a software engineer on the Rustici Engine team (but wouldn’t that be amazing!), we know his love of learning and figuring things out will. That and his useless trivia knowledge will definitely be an asset in various Rustici competitions.

Josh Cooley

We’re cooking up quite the culinary crew, and Josh is no exception. He’s worked his way through a Bob’s Burgers inspired cookbook and would enjoy adding a few fancy dishes to his culinary chops. Making up a menu is only one of many of Josh’s on the fly talents. Josh wanted to improve his DnD DM skills, so he started taking improvisation classes and attending improv shows. In addition to a love of comedy, he’s really into all kinds of horror movies, especially ones that are part of a longer film series.

Growing up in Michigan, Josh was fascinated with computers and was lucky to have had a variety of learning programs for computer programming nearby. When he wasn’t learning lines of code, he was casting a line. Fishing was a big part of Josh’s life, and he can talk all about panfish, bass and more.

Josh is quite the catch for the DevSecOps team. As an engineer, he writes code that stands up servers, builds scripts and works on cloud infrastructure.

Michael Rhinehart

There are certain traits that some have on their character sheet where you know they’ll fit right into the Rustici office culture. For Michael, that was wanting to work with Joe and becoming the next Donnelly (who doesn’t?), naming his in-office Wordle nemesis and jumping right into the ongoing weekly lunch DnD campaign.

We’d need an entire blog series to list all of Michael’s hobbies, but here are a few of the notable highlights: having conversations, audiobooks – all 230 of them, Star Wars, reading Raymond Feist Magician signed first editions from his grandad, reading the 800 other books from his grandad, crotchet and perler beads. Pen-making was his longest-running hobby, where he hand-poured and colored the resin before turning it to make the pens.

Michael’s Rustici quest landed him on the delight team as a customer support specialist – or Joe’s assistant. Before heeding our call, Michael worked at Comcast for 15 years in various tech and training roles.

Nicole Bates

Nicole is great at finding forever homes for both animals, who usually find their way into her loving home, and for our customers, making them feel right at home. That’s no surprise since, prior to Rustici, she was a teacher who coached fellow teachers, administrators and speakers.

And our yearly March Madness bracket in the office might have a little more competition now that she’s on our team. Nicole is a huge University of Kentucky basketball fan and always looks forward to watching the games. After basketball season, you can find her paddleboarding, reading just about every book she can find and supporting her daughters in their favorite hobbies. All of her daughters are currently into theater, which Nicole almost pursued professionally.

Nicole joins the account management team as a Client Success Manager helping customers in a variety of industries with whatever they need to be successful. Be sure to recommend your favorite book when you meet with her!

Adam Parod

Before landing a career in software, Adam had always wanted to be a scientist and was even accepted into one of the top 10 aerospace programs in the country. Then life happened and he made a change. Adam got his developer chops in college when, as part of his dorm’s IT staff, he heard that their small library needed an inventory management solution. He thought, “I can just build this!” That software became a business that still lives on.

Adam is passionate about learning karate and could even teach intro lessons on basic movements if asked. He also enjoys going on family hikes, studying a variety of things (like new languages or the origins of the universe) and playing harmless pranks on his kids. Once, he secretly replaced the water in his Minecraft shower with lava and then sat back and waited. Luckily there was a pond nearby to quench the ensuing flames – Dad of the Year material for sure.

Adam brings 10 years of digital content and EdTech experience to the Content Controller team as a senior developer.

Melissa Vogel

What do climbing, croissants and clients all have in common? Mel! Since moving to
Tennessee from Brooklyn, Mel has really embraced nature and the outdoors. She has become an avid rock climber, biker and sun enthusiast. That feeling of being disconnected from the computer and the clock really helps recharge her batteries.

When not in the office, Mel enjoys relaxing with her two kitties and a good book – or three – to learn something new or escape into a fun fantasy world. She can also be found planning her next trip to Europe or hosting dinner parties, preferably ones that involve a disco ball and dance floor. Bonus points if a charcuterie board is involved!

Mel is no stranger to working in technology. With her previous project management experience supporting tech startups combined with being a people person, Mel is a perfect fit for our account management team as a Client Success Manager where she fosters long term connections with our customers.

Rebecca Favorito

Adding Rebecca to the team is a series of firsts: the first dedicated UI/UX designer, first Ph.D. in medieval history and complete and total Anglophile. Rebecca’s road to designer was a winding one with several interesting stops along the way. After some time in academia, she was working at a publishing company using a few platforms with the worst user experiences and thought she could design something better. Her husband, who is a software developer, encouraged her to pursue that thought, and we’re glad he did!

A self-proclaimed lifelong nerd, Rebecca is always moving from one interest to the next. When she was young, that included history, drama and band. These days, it’s everything from classic Masterpiece Theatre to reading fantasy realism, and home DIY to watching British TV shows with her family. 

As Rustici’s dedicated UI/UX designer, Rebecca will be working on our products with customer user interfaces to redesign them to be easier to use and more accessible for all.

Brandon Herbison

Who doesn’t want someone on their team who brings loads of useless trivia, has a knack for turning whatever is left in the kitchen into a delectable dish and exudes positivity? With Brandon, we gained all of that and more! One of Brandon’s favorite trivia genres is space, or astrophysics specifically, since he finds the fact that we’re all residing on a small ball racing through a vacuum of emptiness fascinating. He can also be found sharing random information about how things work, like solar panels and microwaves.

When his head isn’t in the clouds or thinking about AI, Brandon can be found working on his Home Kitchen Collective blog, walking his doggo bestie or playing the occasional frisbee golf game.

Brandon joins the team as the first and only software developer working specifically on quality assurance and testing of Rustici Generator, our newest product, which is a perfect fit for his love of creatively solving problems and puzzles.