John Anthony Hartman was very fortunate to have had family that owned a computer store in 1981. This kindled the technology spark that now burns throughout his life. From desktop to server and all the topology in-between he has worked the full spectrum of the Information Technology field and has been working with connected networks since the days of 300 baud modems.
Hartman’s career and life have been a mix of the technical and the creative. Inspired by Howard Rheingold and Jaron Lanier, he had a stint as a Virtual Reality consultant in the early 90’s that gave him an insight into the evolution of our interface with technology. He was also fortunate to be in on the ground floor of the internet working with Intel beta testing some of the first web servers and building out one of the first corporate intranets.
While operating a Y2K consulting firm, he was made an offer he could not refuse and went on to become the Sr. Network Engineer for a multi-national corporation with thirty subsidiaries. Modernizing their systems and building out the entire corporate Active Directory Forest from scratch his team achieved success under ridiculous timelines. Working with the Department of Defense, FAA and various other governmental organizations assuring federally mandated compliance of systems and software he became well versed in “red tape”. After a five-year stint he decided to evolve in a new direction.
Hartman moved on to work as a software engineer and architect for the Digital Universe (“The Digital Universe aims to be the definitive repository of human knowledge online.”), eventually becoming the Technology Evangelist for the Digital Universe Foundation. He worked with NASA, Environmental Literacy Council, Earth 911, Cosmos Studios, The Jane Goodall Institute, Lawrence Lessig, Dr. Robert W. Corell, Larry Sanger (co-founder Wikipedia), the afore mentioned Howard Rheingold as well as many other organizations and truly amazing people.
Hartman has served on a number of boards in the past and is currently on the board of the Portland Creative Conference, Portland Social Media Club and an Advisor to the SoMe Awards. He is married with a six-year-old and enjoys spending as much time as he can in the sand or snow.