About Chris Mospaw
Who is this guy?
My name is Chris Mospaw, and computers and technology have been part of my life for a very long time — long enough that I remember when having a computer at home was unusual, connecting to another computer involved a modem, and the World Wide Web was not yet a thing.
Professionally, I’ve spent most of the past three decades working in technology. I started on the creative side, moved into web development and software engineering, became a senior developer and application architect, and eventually moved into managing the products, projects, programs, and people behind the technology.
It hasn’t been an entirely straight line.
Over the years I’ve also been a magazine editor, used car salesman, graphic artist, newspaper production manager (and reporter), corporate trainer, typesetter, IT guy, system administrator, web designer, computer programmer, and maître d’ of a steakhouse for one night.
Some jobs lasted considerably longer than others.
These days, my professional life has two complementary sides. I’m building Chris the Computer Guy, my local IT support and consulting business serving small businesses and individuals in New Braunfels and the surrounding area. At the same time, I’m remaining open the right opportunity to bring my experience in technical program, project, and product management to another organization.
They may sound like very different kinds of work, but there’s more overlap than you might think.
How and why I got into “the Internet”
In the late 1990s, one of my graphic arts and design clients asked me if I could do “that Internet and web thing.”
I couldn’t. So I learned.
I started with basic HTML and quickly became fascinated by the idea of combining the design work I was already doing with this entirely new medium. Early web development was a very manual process, and before long I wanted to find better ways of doing it.
Someone at a hosting company showed me a relatively new tool called PHP/FI. It allowed a website to be broken into reusable pieces instead of building every page individually. PHP/FI eventually became PHP, and what started as curiosity turned into the next couple of decades of my career.
I progressed from building websites to developing increasingly complex web applications, eventually working as a senior developer, technical lead, software architect, and engineering leader. Along the way I worked on everything from small business websites to large, highly available Internet platforms.
Eventually I realized that I was spending less time writing the code myself and more time helping teams decide what to build, why they were building it, and how to get it delivered successfully.
That led me into technical project, product, and program management. I became a Certified Scrum Product Owner and Certified Scrum Master and spent the next phase of my career managing software teams, technical initiatives, dependencies, releases, roadmaps, stakeholders, and all the other moving pieces involved in delivering complicated technology.
From big technology to everyday technology
One thing that never went away was the hands-on side of technology.
I still enjoy working with computers, operating systems, networks, servers, storage, backups, security, websites, and all the other pieces that make modern technology work. I also enjoy figuring out why something isn’t working — which is frequently the more interesting problem.
After my time at GoDaddy ended in 2024, I began doing more local computer and IT work around New Braunfels. That gradually developed into Chris the Computer Guy.
It has given me an interesting opportunity to apply experience gained in much larger technology organizations to considerably smaller environments.
A small business generally does not have hundreds of servers, a dedicated security team, an IT department, or multiple engineering teams. Just the same, it still needs reliable computers, working backups, secure networks, properly managed accounts, good technology decisions, and somebody who understands how all the pieces fit together.
Individuals have many of the same problems on a different scale. Computers need replacing or upgrading. Wi-Fi misbehaves. Data needs to be protected. Software stops cooperating. New technology needs to work with old technology. Sometimes somebody simply needs a patient explanation of what something does and whether they actually need it.
The size of the technology problem changes. The process of understanding it and finding a practical solution really doesn’t.
Where am I now?
My more recent corporate career has centered on technical program and project management.
At Pagely and later GoDaddy, I worked as a senior Technical Program Manager managing complex software initiatives involving multiple products and engineering teams. Most recently, I served as Director of Program Management at SnowCloud, a SaaS company serving the ski resort industry, where I worked closely with development, QA, product, and company leadership to improve the way software moved from an idea through development and into customers’ hands.
Today, I’m growing Chris the Computer Guy as a real business of its own.
I particularly enjoy working with small, independent businesses because they often have genuine technology needs without needing — or wanting — a full-time IT department. I can bring a combination of hands-on technical experience, software and infrastructure knowledge, project management, and decades of accumulated “I’ve seen something like this before” experience to the problem.
I continue to help individuals as well. Technology is technology, whether the problem belongs to a company with ten employees or one person with a laptop that suddenly refuses to cooperate.
Outside of work, I still tend to gravitate toward things that combine technology and creativity. Photography and design have been longtime interests, and I’m rarely very far from some computer, server, operating system, piece of hardware, or other technology that I’ve decided to experiment with.
After all these years, I still like figuring out how things work. And, perhaps more importantly, figuring out what to do when they don’t.
What’s on this site?
This site is a mixture of those different parts of my professional life.
You’ll find information about Chris the Computer Guy and the computer and IT services I provide, along with articles and practical technology information for small businesses and individuals.
You can also find my professional experience and résumé, including my background in technical program and project management, product management, software development, and engineering leadership, as well as some examples of much older work from earlier stages of my career.
In other words, it’s part business website, part professional history, and part record of someone who has been working with technology for a long time — and still loves it.
