My voice background started right out of college in 1981. I learned the ins and outs of analogue voice (which was all there was at the time) and took on digital phone systems as soon as they came out in the late 80s and into the 90s.

I started RonEK and became an NEC dealer in 1997 (known then as Nitsuko) and was their biggest seller in Los Angeles. We were also their beta tester for several products because I was their most technically-oriented dealer. When the internet started to come into vogue in the late 90s, I got my first Cisco certification in 1999. I didn’t get it necessarily to learn to program routers but to understand the internet's numbering system - aka TCP/IP - as it was in some ways similar to the existing voice numbering system. I beta tested several of NEC's early VoIP products and eventually sold more of them than anyone in LA. You could say I was their VoIP poster boy in the early and mid 2000s.

In 2006 Angel, my son, Ryan, and I moved to Texas where I started a Texas version of RonEK. My partner in California continued to run the LA division and really wanted nothing to do with Texas. Fortunately, I was very close to my customer base and was still able to have them serviced by RonEK in CA.

I became Wireshark certified in 2010 and have renewed it every 3 years since then. Wireshark is a very popular network tool that lets you analyze data traffic - including VoIP - down to the binary and hex level. If you know Wireshark, you know networks. This is something that took a lot of studying and something that I am very proud of.

In 2013 I formally ended my dealership with NEC, closed the California chapter of RonEK and went full-time into hosted VoIP with VoIPCO as RonEK Communications of Texas, Inc. I have not looked back since.

CERTIFICATIONS
In addition to my certification with Wireshark, I also have three certifications with Mikrotik, a major commercial brand of router. These include Certified Network Associate (MTCNA), Certified Routing Engineer (MTCRE) and Certified Traffic Control Engineer (MTCTCE). I have used Cisco and Sonicwall routers/firewalls (the two major brands) in the past but really like Mikrotik because I can get into the code - aka command line interface - and program the router to to do anything a "high end" router can do and then some.