Doug-s
Doug Schnelzer
Technical Director

What do you do at AEM?

I help to elevate technical innovations across our work with the Department of Education. Right now, data management is an overarching theme. For instance, I’m helping to link together datasets that give new insights to our clients. There’s a huge potential to impact the issues that our clients care about, ranging from grants performance to equity. 

What's been a standout moment of working at AEM?

I’ve been at AEM since 2002 when I co-founded Vizuri, AEM’s consulting practice for the private sector. Early days at Vizuri were crazy.  

For one client, I remember really liking the solution offered by JBoss (which would later become Red Hat JBoss). We decided to travel to Atlanta to meet with Marc Fleury, the founder of JBoss, and saw such tremendous potential for their work. At this time, they had less than a dozen developers. We sat around a table and had an immediate connection. 

This early relationship became the foundation for Vizuri’s current leadership role in the Red Hat ecosystem. We established our team’s technical expertise, and over time, I was tasked as a consultant to travel around to support large corporations with their JBoss implementations. 

What kind of people succeed at AEM?

You have to be innovative, but above all, you need to want to help your customers. We don’t push for technology for the sake of technology, and we aren’t set on specific technologies either. We help our clients to solve painful problems. 

You need to have passion for improvement. How can clients do things better? That is as true for areas like project management as it is for technical innovation.  

For that matter, how can you continue to learn new skills? Leverage people around you. Learn from sales calls, clients, and your AEM peers—not just trade mags and classes. Your peers have so much insight.