Macktez has a talented, educated, and experienced Team.
Alan Klein was always unnerved by green text on a black screen, and so when Apple’s next great thing hit the shelves (a Mac Classic!) he used it to spin news and land cutting-edge issues on front pages and in primetime. Always lurking inside, however, was his inner geek, evidenced by an early obsession with “Star Trek.” Turning his childhood basement into the Bridge of the Starship Enterprise may have irked his parents, but he went from Trekkie to techie when, after more than two decades in public relations, he started providing Mac IT services to clients in New York. After returning from a brief stint on the west coast he was snatched up and has joined the Macktez Team.
alanklein@macktez.com | 646.274.0941
Christina Patrick originally joined Macktez to help make our move to Grand Street possible. Her background in theatre gives her keen insight and a flexible skillset; she uses both liberally to support our Consultants with a wide variety of administrative tasks.
christina@macktez.com | 646.274.0936
Daniel Burkhardt brings a degree in architecture to Macktez, rounding out the Team’s collective skills with a decade of hands on experience with AutoCAD and (much more exciting) building information modeling systems. His mixture of experience in design and technology makes him a perfect member and dates back a decade, including stints at such colorful shops as Martha Stewart and US Web/CKS/Donovan & Green.
daniel@macktez.com | 646.274.0932
Dominic Ferrantelli has always had a passion for uniqueness, simplicity, and patterns. It was this drive that led him towards an appreciation for technology from old to new. When he’s not building and tweaking home servers of every imaginable variety, he can be found dusting off his collection of vintage computers and curating a growing LaserDisc collection. His fascination with problem solving has served him well in his journey from Vonage, to on-site home theatre installations, the Fashion District, and finally our Team.
dominic@macktez.com | 646.274.0937
Erik Smith knew he loved to tinker as a child when he received his first Radio Shack 150-in-1 Electronics kit. And whenever his IBM field engineer of a dad would bring home chunks of mainframe detritus to rip into, it was like a new toy every time. By the early 90s, instead of using his Mac IIci to do his clerical assistant work, he’d tinker with it, leading him to the life of a professional tinkerer. He also collects, sells, and repairs vintage tin toy robots (on the side with is partner) and builds unique lighting sculptures made from up-cycled industrial artifacts.
erik@macktez.com | 646.274.0943
Jason Valk is a Senior Consultant. He is a skeptical optimist: cautious, relentless, articulate. Since he manages the new client process, the impression he makes is often the first that potential clients get of Macktez, and therefore his coffee intake is strictly rationed.
jason@macktez.com | 646.274.0938
Jay Weinstein may have kept a Mac at his side over twenty years of writing, designing, and troubleshooting, but little else has remained constant. His renaissance wanderings include teaching English to Japanese junior high schoolers, DJ’ing in Oslo opera houses, and managing technology for a very green non-profit. No average technical consultant, Jay brings his own creative temperament to bear against the stubborn. And against technical difficulties too.
jay@macktez.com | 646.274.0928
Josh Feinson has been providing support and administration for Mac and Windows systems for over a decade. In the late nineties he took a brief detour into quality assurance at a well known Redmond-based company, an experience that taught him to classify software development in the same category as sausage and politics: those who like the product should never see the production. Josh moved from the Macktez San Francisco office to join us in New York, and still believes in the command line.
josh@macktez.com | 646.274.0944
Lee Corless is our lead Team Member in the UK and brings a degree in History to Macktez. He has worked in IT for over two decades in various diverse roles including support, database and web development, technical training and project management. During much of the nineties, he was the IT Consultant for The Law Society of England — Overseeing and coordinating the UK legal professions’ “colourful” transition into the digital age. Lee lives with his wife and five year old daughter in Oxford and commutes to London on a daily or weekly basis. In his occasional moments of spare time, he is a musician, cineaste, soccer fan, gadgeteer, and motorcyclist.
lee@macktez.com | 646.747.5610
Matthew Vladimir is our Director of Operations. Besides managing the internal operations of the Macktez office, he also supervises all installations, deliveries, and provides front-line support. He set his personal best in marathons in 1992 as a guide for a blind athlete.
matthew@macktez.com | 646.274.0929
Michael Horst is our Vice President. He somehow reconciles his background in molecular biochemistry and biophysics with his experience in Mac and Windows network installation and administration. The result is a suite of impressive troubleshooting techniques on projects ranging from financial planning to sea kayaking.
horst@macktez.com | 646.274.0930
Nate Smith grew up snacking on the Apple IIe, but really developed a taste for Macs when he began using them to create his own music and films. He first joined the Macktez Team in the mid-00s after a stint in the publishing and production worlds and has returned to us after a few years touring the world with his band Shy Child. He continues to insist he is just as happy working on a portable computer as he is disassembling one.
nate@macktez.com | 646.274.0939
Noah Landow is our Founder & President. His experience in architecture, print and interactive design, network design and installation, and database development provide a foundation for organizing projects and building collaborative teams. He keeps his head on straight by training in a seriously obscure form of aikijujutsu.
noah@macktez.com | 646.274.0931
Nicole Bongard, our lead Team Member in San Francisco, is a Parsons School of Design-trained and accomplished award-winning graphic designer. She combines her experience in design excellence with the skills she acquired training employees in Apple Stores, to assist others in the pursuit of usable technology. In addition to raising her daughter Riley, performing vocals with her band, and sinking balls in the corner pocket down at the local pool hall, she helped to get the national APA league started in SF, playing with one of the first teams in the city.
nicole@macktez.com | 646.274.0935
Reed Payne is a New Hampshire native with a talent for languages, both human and machine. While majoring in French, he spent many nights analyzing network traffic, tinkering with system security, and wrapping his head around encryption concepts. Now, as a firm believer in the power of UNIX and the command line, he spends nights polishing his English, French, and Swedish and improving his German, Slovakian, and Japanese. He joined us after a couple of years on the front lines, getting hands dirty at Tekserve and other illustrious NYC venues.
reed@macktez.com | 646.274.0942
Robert Carlisle began his journey to us in the graphic arts field down in New Orleans the year Macktez was founded. While outputting film and fixing files over the night shift at a busy service bureau, he was tapped, on account of above average understanding of the technical side of things, to join the IT support side and start fixing bigger things. Almost ten years ago he made the jump to focusing full-time on fixing computers not files, and now he’s made the next big leap all the way up to join us in New York City.
robert@macktez.com | 646.274.0926
Sara Kelly is the Assistant to Noah and Michael. Years of study and performance in classical music, dance and opera have left Sara with a Master’s degree, a passion for the arts, a fluency in French, an affinity for precision and detail, and the ability to handle any number of sudden, unforeseen, and peculiar circumstances with a sense of humor and aplomb. She brings those skills to bear on a wide range of Macktez matters, working as Noah and Michael’s right-hand woman. Continued musical studies and performance as well as her longtime yoga practice help ensure her focus stays sharp.
sara@macktez.com | 646.747.5611
