Web Performance Lab: Meet the Team – LoadStorm

Over the next year, our team will be working tirelessly to bring you the best of the best in performance engineering content. We have several experiments we are working on to test and prove what changes really make a difference in web performance and scalability. Our team will be running performance experiments, documenting the results, bringing you the facts and sharing the best tips and tricks we learn along the way.

Scott Price:

Meet our fearless leader: Scott is VP of Sales, CMO, and Chief Performance Engineer. He is from Lexington, Kentucky and now lives and works in Colorado. Scott is co-founder of LoadStorm along with long time business partner Roger Campbell. He loves the outdoors and spends the majority of his free time cycling, hiking, skiing and backpacking.

We asked Scott, “What makes you unique?” and he replied: “I’m technical and really enjoy software development, but my nature is to be more of a sales person. Yeah, you don’t hear that combination too often. I love the work I get to do with performance testing. The most complex puzzles I’ve ever had to solve have been around optimizing web architecture to make systems more scalable.”

Scott is in charge of running everything on the customer facing side of the business. Within the Web Performance Lab team, he is involved in the planning process and works with the team to evaluate the data and draw conclusions. He also helps keep everyone working on the same page and focused on producing nothing but the best data and content.

Michael Dunagan:

Michael is our technical support engineer on the LoadStorm team. He was born in Texas and has been in Albuquerque since 2004. He received his MBA in management information systems and information assurance from the University of New Mexico. In his spare time, Michael enjoys playing games such as Magic the Gathering, League of Legends, billiards.
We asked Michael, “What brought you to LoadStorm?” and he replied:

“Luck of the Irish. I happened to be job hunting at the right time and I looked in the right place for a job posting they had just put up.”

Michael juggles many hats for LoadStorm. He is our webmaster for LoadStorm.com and anytime we need changes made with wordpress or the CSS he is our go-to resource. Additionally, he is a technical support engineer and helps clients with any technical support issues they may have. He is also team leader of the Web Performance Lab experiments. His duties include planning the experiments, setting up the technical parameters, and running the tests.

Dan Green:

Dan is our Performance Engineering Intern. He came to LoadStorm through the STEP internship program at University of New Mexico. He is from Goodrich, Michigan and is currently working towards a computer science degree. In his spare time, Dan enjoys working on personal programming projects and playing Steam games.

We asked Dan, “What makes you unique?” and here is his response:
“I have a background in both programming and graphic design, so I’ve ended up with a unique perspective on both, with each having an influence on the other. My programming experience influences my artistic style and vice versa. I’ve gotten a little experience doing just about everything, from writing to software design to animation to video editing, so I guess I’m a jack of all trades, master of none.”

Dan’s role with the Web Performance Lab Team includes assisting with running tests and analyzing data. However, his most significant role is documenting the experiments and summarizing the results into interesting blog posts and content for everyone to read. He is very valuable to out team because he is strong technically as well as an excellent writer- so we appreciate that he is a ‘jack of all trades’!

Mike Ruby:

Mike is our other Performance Engineering Intern. Like Dan, he is also a computer science student at the University of New Mexico. He is an Albuquerque native and spends his free time watching Red Sox baseball, skiing, playing hockey and reading. We were surprised to learn that Mike is also a history buff and loves war history!

We asked Mike what he wanted to share with the world about his work here at LoadStorm and he replied: “That I am working hard to do what I can to help build and improve this company, and that LoadStorm is here to help its customers improve their websites and make their jobs easier.”

Mike is a great addition to our team and his role on the Performance Lab Team involves assisting with the experiments and documenting the results. It was Mike’s contribution to begin analyzing and optimizing our own site loadstorm.com. Mike is also a strong writer and is responsible for some great blog posts including our very first post about optimizing our LoadStorm site (click here to read).

Arwen Price:

And I am Arwen. If you have really been paying attention, you might have noticed I have the same last name as the head honcho- Scott. I am Scott’s daughter and am a bit unique within a tech company. Mainly because I do not have the computer science degree or technical background that the others have. In my free time, I ride horses and love both reining and jumping.

I am an intern just like Dan and Mike but focus on the less technical work. I set up the marketing automation software to document and track our campaigns, write drip campaign emails, and am head of our social media efforts. My role with the Web Performance Lab is summarizing the information we get from the experiments and creating visual content pieces to engage our followers such as infographics, slideshares, and eBooks.