Mr. Padilla spent the first 25 years of his adult life in the US Air Force as a 9S100 Scientific Applications Specialist, the career field nicknamed "The Enlisted Scientists" by the Air Force ISR Agency.  Performing such missions as worldwide Nuclear Treaty Monitoring and Measurement & Signature Intelligence provided him a breadth of experience, especially when working R&D missions.  One key component of his former military career is that the 9S100s provided for all their own IT needs, acting as network engineers, comm technicians, electronics/electrical technicians, system administrators, break-fix technicians, and help desk.  Not only did the 9S100s do all their own IT, but they did all their own plumbing, carpentry, and electrical work, all on top of operating and maintaining the sensor systems, analyzing the data from the sensor systems, and reporting the results to National Command Authorities.

Since leaving the Air Force, he has spent most of his time in education as a teacher and a substitute teacher, previously specializing in Physics and the other sciences, and has also worked as a contractor and as a freelance IT consultant for the State of Texas and in various retail operations.  To keep his skills sharp, he still does freelance work through Field Nation while teaching by contract and at local community colleges.  Most recently, he was contracted by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) Training Strategies Group to be on full-time retainer as a trainer and consultant.

He has an Associate of Applied Science degree in Scientific Analysis Technology, and a Bachelor of Applied Science in the same, plus a Master’s degree in an unrelated field.  In addition to academic degrees, he holds multiple certifications from CompTIA, Microsoft, and Cisco, and also is one of the first few hundred people in the world to hold the brand new Certified IoT Practitioner certification from CertNexus.

Mr. Padilla doesn't pretend to have all the answers, but he does know how to find out who to ask to get them!