Adam Simpson

My computing life began in 4th grade with a Pong game for Christmas. The next year came an Intellivision. My first real computer was a Timex Sinclair ZX80 — cassette tapes for storage, 2K of RAM, and no hard disk. From that moment I was hooked on what computers could do for real work and for reaching people beyond our local area.

An Apple IIe arrived with dual floppy drives, 64K of RAM, and a modem. I spent countless hours running bulletin boards (BBSes) and talking to other computer users across the country. The ability to communicate and solve problems with these machines was what kept me interested.

After high school hockey, earning my private pilot’s license, and a short time in college hockey, I enlisted in the U.S. Army. I served two years as an 11B Infantryman with the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, New York. We deployed for Hurricane Andrew relief in Homestead, Florida, and to Somalia for Operation Restore Hope.

After an honorable discharge I returned to St. Norbert College in De Pere, majoring in Business Administration. I also worked at my father’s FBO, Executive Air, at Austin Straubel International Airport. The internet was just beginning to become useful — text-based sites, early Netscape, and a college connection that topped out at 56K. I was back in computers for good.

Netsonic started when I began building websites for customers. I quickly discovered I preferred the infrastructure side over design. I had been hosting client sites with Pair Networks in Pittsburgh — a company I still respect. Eventually I decided to run my own servers. We started with a single T1 and four machines in my apartment. We outgrew several locations until we purchased and built out the datacenter we operate today — wholly owned, in Green Bay.