~/about

Builder. Learner. Problem solver.

I'm Marq — an IT professional in St. Louis focused on systems, infrastructure, and security.

I didn't come into tech through a straight line. Most of my working life was in my family's food-service business — running a cafeteria, doing whatever the day required. It was steady, but it wasn't mine. I could feel there was more range in me than the job ever asked for.

What pulled me toward technology wasn't a plan — it was that computers were something I could take apart, in my head, until they made sense. Linux, servers, networking, self-hosting — none of it was assigned to me, I just kept pulling the thread. And somewhere in there, troubleshooting stopped being frustrating and started being the calmest part of my day. Something breaks, you find the actual reason, you fix it. No ambiguity — just a system telling you exactly what's wrong, if you know how to listen.

Technology is moving fast enough now that most people just react to it. I didn't want to be someone AI and automation happen to — I wanted to understand the machinery well enough to have a say in my own future.

Building my homelab, standing up Proxmox, getting my own site live, earning the A+ — that's when it stopped being a hobby and became a decision. IT is the first thing I've done that grows in the same direction I do.