TekLinks has surfaced on Nine Lives Media’s seventh-annual MSPmentor 501 Global Edition (http://www.mspmentor.net/top501), a distinguished list and report identifying the world’s top 501 managed service providers (MSPs). This year, TekLinks moved up 10 spots to rank 18^th among the global leaders.

This week we're featuring Brian Bufalo, our Internal Systems Administrator and affable Renaissance man. Brian has been with us since May 2013, and already he has become an essential part of our ongoing internal projects and initiatives. Before coming to TekLinks, Brian served in the Navy on the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD6) - which is also where he met Samantha, his wife of almost 8 years. They both stay busy keeping up with their son Kennan (2.5 years), their daughter Isabella (just 5 mo.), and Lucy the Cocker Spaniel. In his spare time, Brian reads, goes to the zoo with his family, and builds forts and Lego masterpieces with Kennan. Oh, and he loves Call of Duty. Brian also likes to blog and is working on his degree in History at the University of Montevallo.

Hal began working at TekLinks in 2005 and has worked tirelessly to become our most highly certified engineer at the company. His engineering focus is environment assessments and analyses. Basically, you can think of Hal as the perfect combination of tech aficionado and business consultant. He loves to fix aging or broken environments by finding out what is keeping them from running as efficiently as they could. He and his team primarily work with our larger enterprise clients to identify points of failure, manage complex projects, and/or recommend next steps. While working closely with the client and their account manager, Hal and his team leverage all of TekLinks’ product lines to provide the best solution possible. At times, Hal even screens applicants for networking engineer positions that his clients have available.

After a really rough night, and a hazardous day ahead for many, we wanted to share one of our engineer's thoughts as he battled the traffic alongside thousands of Birmingham motorists. Good luck and stay safe to everyone still trying to get home.

This week's Employee Spotlight is our Tier II Support Manager, Jason Esman. Besides using his WordPress expertise to keep our marketing team from mucking up the website, Jason handles everything from Linux, Windows, DNS, FTP, & SQL to assisting with multiple managed & cloud services each day. Jason joined the TekLinks team after working for VentureNet LLC.  An admitted "bad boy" in his youth, he finally settled down and started a family with his wife Monica. They now have three daughters – Stephanie (23), Isabella (15), and Kaitlyn (15) – and four dogs, three of which are rescue pets. When he's not rescuing non–technical people from digital blunders, he enjoys shooting at the gun range, landscaping his yard, spending time with his family, and amateur radio.