About

My name is Kevin Pereksta. I'm a technology leader, systems builder, and problem solver working across manufacturing, automation, software, AI, and enterprise systems.

Skills

My strongest skill is understanding systems and cross-functional problem solving. This frequently involves software, infrastructure, manufacturing workflows, business processes, control systems, and understanding unspoken rules inside organizations. If I list out various skills I've acquired over time, it might look like this:

  • Full-stack software development
  • Product management (roadmap, prioritization, discovery, measuring impact)
  • Windows Server administration (AD, DNS, DHCP, GPO, etc.)
  • Linux server administration
  • Experience with SolidWorks
  • Experience with developing for control systems with RSLogix/Studio5000
  • IIoT Realistically though, the value I bring to an organization is the ability to combine solutions from different functions.

Origins

I was fascinated with computers ever since I was a young child. My parents would always be frustrated because I would take apart the family computer, install software, and "click too fast." In some cases they were probably justified. Around the age of 10, my brother gave me his old PlayStation Portable (PSP). I learned that there was a custom software scene around the PSP, and from that moment on my chief concern became learning how to hack the PSP so I could partake in this scene. I spent months trying to get access to a special battery called a "Pandora Battery", that would reset the PSP into a recovery mode allowing you to install custom firmware. The issue was it required a specific battery that Sony had stopped making. I was trading gift cards and anything I had of value to friends for their PSP batteries. Eventually I finally managed to get one and that was the start of my software development journey. Once I had custom firmware on my PSP, I quickly learned about Lua and began spending every day thinking about making games. I'd try to program 2d physics, then I'd try to understand how 3d rendering worked, then I'd learn about raycasting. In retrospect, the real turning point for me happened in about 8th grade in Algebra class. I realized as long as I knew the pattern to solve whatever type of problem we were working on in class, I could write software to automate it, then just enter all the problems in on my PSP and write down the answers. Around this time I started realizing I actually didn't care that much for game development, what really fascinated me was solving problems.

Hobbies

I've had a number of hobbies throughout my life. For example:

  • Rock climbing (indoor bouldering)
  • Weightlifting/Powerlifting, achieved a 1035lb total @ 180lb bodyweight
  • StarCraft II, I reached Masters 2
  • Rocket League, I reached Grand Champion (1570)
  • Trackballs, I spent ~500 hours aim training on trackball, achieving Voltaic diamond in several aim disciplines
  • Cars, I put a Mustang supercharger on my 2005 Ford Explorer, tuned my 2017 Lincoln Continental, installed nitrous on my 2004 Mach1 Mustang
  • Music, I'm not a virtuoso in any way, but I play and have played various instruments such as Guitar, Bass (guitar & upright), Banjo, Clarinet, Saxophone, Oboe, and Piano. I also spent time learning some guitar repair/luthier practices and techniques.
  • Overclocking, for a brief period of time I had the fastest all AMD system. I preordered a Ryzen 1800x, installed 3 Radeon Fury X graphics cards and put the whole thing in a chillbox.
  • Home servers, I built a ridiculous home server, involving 4 16-core Opteron's that had unlocked multipliers. I put a massive water loop on them with 4 360mm radiators. I installed 128 GB of RAM. My media server was cooking. There's always something I'm trying to get better at.

Today

Today my interest has become largely about leveraging a wide range of disciplines and skills to solve cross-functional organizational problems.