Nolan Guagenti brings his A-game to VAE, Inc. every day not only as its CEO but as its co-founder. Mr. Guagenti started his career in IT as a software programmer as a young U.S. Marine where he was stationed in the National Capital Region (NCR) supporting the Pentagon. During his time in the military, he worked his way up from working on the helpdesk to running the network for the Marines in the NCR, all while working a full-time job for a large ISP after-hours.
Mr. Guagenti jumped right in supporting post-9/11 modernization efforts after leaving the military and became the lead architect for the Command Communications Survivability Program charged with revamping, revitalizing, and modernizing the entire network at the Pentagon. During this time, Mr. Guagenti successfully led a team of engineers from other companies. February 2006, months after finishing the Pentagon job, he and his wife, Nicole Guagenti, started VAE and took the company from a two-person business to a top-tier, highly respected, and sought-after network engineering firm.
Mr. Guagenti has gone on to oversee the design and implementation of some of the largest and most complex network and security environments in the world. This experience helped him become one of the first 10,000 Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts, considered by many a doctorate in IT.