About Us

CHI-NOG organizers:

Tom Kacprzynski
Tom (CCIE#36159) is a network professional currently working as a Manager and an Architect of Network Engineering and Core Deployment in Chicago, IL. He has over 16 years of experience working with enterprise and service provider networks. Currently working for a CDN provider (VidsScale) building a global network for video delivery. Previously, he worked for a major cloud and hosting provider (Rackspace). Tom is also the co-founder and organizer of CHI-NOG. Tom has been involved with other industry organizations such as the program committee, IXP and membership committee of Open-IX.

Brian McGahan
Brian (CCIEx4 #8593, CCDE #2013::13) at the age of 20, earned his first CCIE in Routing & Switching and became known as the “youngest engineer in the world.” He continued on to earn CCIE certifications in Security, Service Provider, and Data Center, as well as CCDE (Design) certification. Brian has developed and taught for INE since 2002, setting the bar for CCIE training and helping thousands of engineers obtain their own certifications. When he is not developing new products for INE, Brian McGahan consults with large ISPs and enterprise customers. Brian is also the co-founder of CHI-NOG.

Jason Gooley
Jason, CCIEx2 (RS,SP) #38759, is a very enthusiastic engineer that focuses on network and data center design. He has over 18 years of experience in the industry. Jason currently works at Cisco as a Systems Engineer and holds two expert level CCIE certifications. He is very passionate about helping others in the industry succeed. In addition, Jason is also a Cisco Press Author, CCIE mentor, trainer and blogger for Cisco Systems.

Vince Celindro
Vince (JNCIE #69 / CCIE #8630) has nearly twenty years of experience architecting, deploying, operating networks and challenging the norm. Vince is currently an Architect at Juniper Networks, where he travels around the country helping well-known organizations ranging from mega/hyperscale datacenters, tier2/3 service providers, large global colo-facilities, higher education, retailers and online gaming companies. He architects, maintains and advances their networks to support their respective services today and for the future. He is a mentor and always willing to share his knowledge/experiences to help improve and progress the craft of Network Engineering.