About

Greg A. Lato (latoga) 

After many internal struggles trying to classify latoga labs, I realized that it is really my career blog. With over 17 years of experience managing, building, and selling technology based solutions, I have a very diverse background across multiple technology sectors and businesses.  Over this period my focus quickly centered on the value that technology can bring to a business; I have also been in the center of the revolution that new technologies has brought to multiple business sectors.

This purpose of this blog is to provide a place where I can write about my experiences, thoughts, and the stuff that I find most exciting about this great ride I find myself on (frequency varies based upon my activity level).  Over the history of this blog, I have discussed many areas as my focus areas have naturally shifted with my career and interests.  Different technology areas, leadership, management, business, and even economy.  Interestingly enough, I always find nearly everything from the past relating to something in the future and it all weaves itself into a giant web.

In my current day job with VMware I help my global clients realize the benefits of virtualization and help them understand the current and future ways that this technology can be used to impact their businesses.  To put this in perspective, as of the end of 2010, my three global clients combined are:

• Running over 50,000 VMs across their enterprises
• Employing over 438,000 people around the world
• Generating over $340 Billion in yearly corporate revenues
• Spread across two different business sectors

Whether I’m working with the executive leadership at my clients or project groups, I function as a Field CTO. With experience and knowledge that spans all three pillars of VMware’s offerings – End User Computing, Application Development, Data Center Infrastructure – I will move between each of the three areas and descend or ascend the depth of the pillar as needed by the situations that present themselves. This will range from strategic business and IT value conversations to senior IT leadership to technology architecture and solution design with project teams.

In my capacity at VMware I have found this blog to be a valuable tool to help keep my customers in touch with various developments from VMware, hence the VMW Launchpad, and help share the challenges and success that the largest of enterprises are seeing in the evolving area of virtualization and its tangents.

Resume

My abbreviated resume in reverse chronological order, see my LinkedIn profile for more details.

	VMware, Global Solution Consultant (currently) Member of Global Account sales team. (Virtualization, Cloud, and more…)
	Independent Consultant Sales based consulting work with SnapLogic (Integration)
	Iona Technologies, Value Engineering Value selling overlay for Western US sales region. (SOA and Integration)
	Port Authority Technologies, Manager of Sales Engineering Built and lead startup sales engineering team. (IT Security)
	Blazent, Principal Systems Engineer Senior technical member of Western Region sales team. (Business Intelligence)
	Bristol Technology, Senior Systems Engineer Senior technical member of Western Region sales team. (Business Process Monitoring)
	Resonate, Principal Systems Engineer & Senior Product Manager Technical lead of Eastern US, then Western US sales team. Involved with release of new product offering from inception through launch. (Load Balancing & Web Application Performance Management)

Education

Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire.  With an minor emphasis in English, Technical Writing.

Other Interests

Maintaining a balanced life is extremely important, especially when you work in such a high paced industry such as technology.  I (try to) accomplish this through my serious interests in photography; the occasional distraction of imitating a golfer; exploring nature on foot, wheel, or ski (usually with my camera gear on my back); and exploring our world by traveling as much as possible.  Thought since starting a family time has been re-prioritized for most of these activities.

Blog Comment Policy

I encourage everyone to participate in discussions based on any posting on this blog.  That being said, I do not condone the following as part of those discussions:

• Spam
• While I don’t mind others discussing their products/services, please be transparent and make it relevant to the discussion
• Please be courteous and considerate of myself and my readers with your comments.

I actively filter for spam and reserve the right to delete any comment.