Happy holidays from ISC!
ISC is fortunate to have staff members in so many different countries around the world: our software development benefits from all the different perspectives - and we benefit personally!
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Most of our recent engineer profiles have focused on new ISC staff members, but now it’s time to get up close and personal with someone who’s been here more than 11 years: Eddy Winstead!
Eddy is ISC’s Sales Engineer, the technical voice of our sales team. Prospective customers often speak to him before signing up for ISC’s support services, to better understand how our support team can help their organization succeed. Eddy is also in charge of training and consulting engagements for our customers.
He grew up in tobacco-farming country in the southeastern US, and was first introduced to UNIX as an intern with the MCNC North Carolina Research and Education Network (NCREN) in high school and college. After earning his engineering degree, Eddy was immersed in the intricacies of BIND 9 and ISC DHCP in his full-time job at NCREN, where he served as Hostmaster for about 15 years. He says that everything that’s been applicable to his work at ISC has been learned on the job - except for typing, “which turned out to be the most valuable class I took in high school!”
Eddy’s work puts him in constant contact with ISC’s customers, and he loves that interaction. He says, “Prior to Covid, I had the opportunity to travel the world and do training and consulting for ISC customers. The travel was great, but my favorite part was meeting customers. I’ve made some great friends and have been shown parts of the world I wouldn’t have seen without those connections. I’ve done some great hikes, had some great meals of local cuisine, and visited some off-the-beaten-path places with ISC customers.”
ISC was a natural fit for Eddy’s talents. As he says, “BIND was just what you used for DNS back in the ’90s, so that’s where work with open source began for me.” He has a good mix of technical and business sense, as well as both best-practice engineering and operational knowledge, which make him invaluable to our customers.
During the Covid era, he has had to do most customer sessions virtually. He says, “I’ve made some great connections this way, but I look forward to meeting more of these folks in person in the future.”
When he’s not eating deep-fried pickles (his Southern birthright), you may find Eddy playing old-school video games or Nintendo with his kids, listening to electronic music, or hiking. And if you ever spend time with him on Zoom, you may see him playing fetch with one of his cats.
Thank you for using ISC’s software and we hope you have enjoyed this peek behind the ISC curtain. We hope that sharing a little about us helps strengthen our connection to our customers. We welcome your feedback at marketing@isc.org!