Clay
Founder · Architect
Hi, I'm Clay
Fifteen years. Every rung of the ladder.
I started where I think everyone in this industry should: on the helpdesk, headset on, taking the calls. Fifteen years later I'm an architect — and I got there the slow way. Sysadmin, engineering, architecture, and every 2 AM cutover in between.
I've worked the full spread. Fortune 100 enterprises. Municipalities. Ten-user shops where the server room is an actual closet. Different budgets, same lesson: everyone deserves support from someone who's already seen their problem.
I started Deft Minds because I watched the traditional model from the inside — juniors learning on client networks, tickets aging in queues, the senior engineer locked behind three tiers of escalation. So I built the company I kept wishing I could refer people to.
The person you email is the person who fixes it. That's me.
- 15 yearsHelpdesk to architect
- F100 → 10 usersEvery size of shop
- Tier 3The only tier on the bench
Shawn
Lead Systems Engineer
The lead systems engineer
Meet Shawn. The engineer other engineers call.
Eighteen years of systems engineering, and almost none of them easy. Shawn has run infrastructure for manufacturing floors, hospital networks, finance back-ends, and logistics yards — the kind of range you only build by saying yes to every ugly problem for two decades.
He's who we hand the stacks nobody else will touch: the VMware cluster no one documented, the firewall carrying a decade of accumulated rules, the tenant six admins inherited and none of them cleaned up. When we say "we've seen this before," Shawn is usually the reason it's true.
Ask him a question, you get the answer, the reason, and the write-up.
- 18 yearsSystems engineering, end to end
- Every industryManufacturing to healthcare to finance
- Tier 3Leads the bench
Will
Security Engineer
The security engineer
Meet Will. The reason your alerts actually mean something.
Years in the trenches of SIEM, EDR, XDR, and IDS — the alphabet soup of security tools that most people deploy once and never tune. Will has configured detection stacks for government contractors and Fortune 500s alike, in environments where "close enough" isn't a thing.
He's the engineer who walks into your SOC, sees seventeen thousand unread alerts, and doesn't flinch. He's built rule sets that catch real threats, tuned sensors to stop crying wolf, and architected security stacks that survive both audits and actual incidents. Corporate, federal, cleared — he's worked the full spectrum.
If your security tools are loud but useless, Will's the fix.
- SIEM to XDREvery detection stack worth deploying
- Gov + CorporateCleared and commercial environments
- Tier 3Detection and response
Todd
Chief Information Security Officer
The CISO
Meet Todd. Thirty years turning risk into programs that work.
Todd started at the NSA analyzing product and software security, and spent the next three decades building cybersecurity programs for companies that couldn't afford to get it wrong. Financial services. Intelligence. Pharmaceuticals. Manufacturing. He's been the CISO, led global security projects, and sat across the table from executives who needed real answers, not buzzwords.
He's built teams, implemented strategies, and kept them on budget — because a security program that bankrupts the company isn't security. He holds multiple patents, was Bank of America's Executive-in-Residence at the MIT Media Lab, and currently runs Incovate Solutions. When we need enterprise-level security strategy, Todd's the call.
World-class security, sized for your budget. Not the other way around.
- 30 yearsNSA to CISO to executive advisor
- Multi-industryFinance, intel, pharma, manufacturing
- RSA AdvisoryActive in infosec leadership
Stacy
Project Manager
The project manager
Meet Stacy. The reason anything gets done around here.
Herding engineers is not for the faint of heart. Stacy keeps projects on track, tickets from falling through the cracks, and engineers from disappearing into rabbit holes for three days because "it'll just take five minutes." She's the one who knows what's actually happening, who's working on what, and when it'll be ready — not the optimistic version, the real one.
She translates client urgency into engineer priorities, engineer explanations into client updates, and chaos into something that looks like a plan. Without her, we'd be a bunch of talented people working in eight different directions. With her, we're a team that actually ships.
Think herding cats is hard? Try herding engineers.
- Cat herderEngineer wrangler extraordinaire
- On scheduleThe actual schedule, not the dream
- Zero dropped ballsShe tracks everything
Dan
Acquisition Specialist
The acquisition specialist
Meet Dan. 20 years buying for the Army. Now he's on your side of the table.
Dan served 20 years in the U.S. Army, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel and warranted Contracting Officer. He spent his career inside federal acquisition at the U.S. Special Operations Command level — writing requirements, structuring deals, and helping shape acquisition policy. He's also sat on Source Selection Boards, so he knows exactly how evaluators read, score, and eliminate proposals.
His credentials back it up: DAWIA Level III in Contracting, DAWIA Level II in Program Management, PMP, CFCM, and an MBA in Acquisition & Contract Management from the Naval Postgraduate School. He also bids on government work as a small-business owner himself, so he knows the process from both desks. When we pursue a contract, Dan turns our technical capability into a compliant proposal that's easy for evaluators to score.
Government contracting has rules. Dan helped write some of them.
- SOCOM-levelFederal acquisition authority
- Both sidesBuyer's desk and bidder's chair
- DAWIA IIIPlus PMP, CFCM, MBA
When you need more
We scale up. We don't scale down.
Five engineers is our core. It's not our ceiling. When a project demands more capacity — enterprise migrations, multi-site builds, the kind of work that needs bodies in seats — we tap a network we've spent years building. Senior engineers. People we've worked with, not people we found on LinkedIn last week.
We don't staff projects with juniors and hope they figure it out. We don't bring in contractors who need three days of onboarding before they touch anything. When we scale, we scale with people who already know what Tier 3 means. The standard doesn't change. The bench just gets deeper.
Bigger projects, same principles. No compromises.
Fair warning
We're not for everyone. That's the point.
Every Deft Minds engineer is Tier 3. That means our bench is small and it doesn't scale like a call center — because it isn't one. We cap the client roster so quality never dilutes.
When slots are full, they're full. The waitlist is real.
No sales call, no discovery deck. If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you straight and point you somewhere better.
Prefer your own inbox? hello@deftminds.com