Guy McDowell

Guy McDowell is a writer at Help Desk Geek. Guy previously worked as an IT coordinator at Kent Building Supplies from October 2012 to November 2017. During their time at Kent, they were able to reduce labour costs by $50,000, increase net profit by seven figures, and reduce turn-around time on price checking by almost a year by automating the process using VBA in Excel. Guy also provided a server refresh plan that was $80,000 lower than all other estimates, which reduced licensing costs by 40% and energy costs by $5,000 per year. The payback period for this plan was 2 years, before taking into account the elimination of lost revenue through downtime and the threat of data leakage. In addition, they facilitated the transition from hardware, networking, and ERP systems used by Central Building Supplies to Kent standards at all locations when Kent acquired Central. This included site surveys, inventory, extensive process documentation, and re-cabling at all locations. Guy has also performed systems administration and technical support duties supporting 12 different locations, Epicor Falcon ERP, Progress database, desktop applications, networking, and a thin client/RDP environment. Prior to their work at Kent, McDowell was a staff writer at MakeUseOf.com from December 2009 to December 2016.

Guy McDowell's educational career consists of a few different fields. Guy has a degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences/Classics from Laurentian University/Université Laurentienne. Guy also has a degree in Airframe Mechanics and Aircraft Maintenance Technology/Technician from Canadian Forces School of Aerospace Technology and Engineering. In addition to their degrees, Guy McDowell also has a certification from Cleo in Cleo EDI Data Movement Administrator, a certification from Cleo in Cleo EDI Data Transformation Developer, a certification from Fortinet in NSE 1 Network Security Associate, a certification from UC San Diego in Learning How to Learn - With Honors, a certification from lynda.com in ITIL Foundations, a certification from University of Pittsburgh in Disaster Preparedness, and a certification from CIPS (Canada’s Association of I.T. Professionals) in CIPS Nova Scotia Member.

Their manager is Ryan Dube, Managing Editor. They work with David Trounce - Writer, Patrick Hearn - Writer, and Sydney Butler - Writer.