Ross Brunson has more than 30 years of experience as a Linux and open-source trainer, training manager, and certification architect, and is the author of the nowclassic LPIC-1 Exam Cram 2, several iterations of the CompTIA Linux+ Cert Guide, and dozens of technical courses for major organizations. Ross is currently the Education Architect at Grafana Labs (www.grafana.com), where he focuses on building a learning framework and training offerings that help employees and customers make the best use of Grafana to observe, troubleshoot, and maintain their environments. Previously, Ross was a Senior Technical Training Engineer for NGINX, where he completely redid the Fundamentals learning track, authored a number of Getting Started guides, and taught a number of customer engagements to help new NGINX customers take full advantage of the platform. Before NGINX, Ross enjoyed a few years at Linux Academy/A Cloud Guru where as a Senior Training Architect, he authored the SUSE Certified Administrator and Engineer courses, did the Red Hat Certified System Administrator Labs, created many additional courses on systemd, VIM and the screen command, and wrote and reviewed way too many exam questions. Ross has also put in a tour of duty as the Certification Architect at SUSE, where he helped redesign and modernize the entire certification program. He has also spent five years as the Director of Member Services for the Linux Professional Institute, where he contributed to placing several LPI courses into the Cisco Networking Academy, conducted dozens of train-the-trainer sessions, and provided sales enablement support for the worldwide Master Affiliate network, spanning more than 100 countries and nearly a million certified professionals. Ross holds a number of key IT certifications and is author of several successful technical books and dozens of technical courses for major organizations (including the first U.S. LPI Certification Bootcamps). He is skilled at both contributing to and building community around IT products. Ross lives in Paradise Valley, Montana, with his family and enjoys traveling far and wide, participating in hiking, winter sports, photography, and playing the drums with great vigor (although not everyone around him appreciates it).
