Sergei Bleikhman - CTO

Sergei Bleikhman got his first peek at computer world in Tashkent high school, studying BASIC, FORTRAN, and creating primitive video games on unbreakable (in physical sense) Soviet computers. While going through an electrical engineering program in college, he also took on a 2-year military training in artillery, graduating with the rank of a Lieutenant. Exciting post-graduation time was spent between developing patented control systems for robotics and playing with the small and large toys in the deserts of Central Asia.

Despite the enticing job benefits of high heat and scorpions, Sergei decided to put aside his military career, concentrating instead on various post-USSR consulting projects for the European Union. In 1994 he left the continent for a 2-year trip to the United States.

Sergei was introduced to his first real computer GUI in the summer school of Carnegie Mellon University, where a 100% Apple environment was forced upon unsuspecting newcomers. He later attended Rochester Institute of Technology, where Apple shared space with VAX/VMS and Windows NT. During his MBA studies there Sergei has worked for ABB Industrial Systems, assisting in the development of marketing data warehouse. Upon graduation he has decided to make Canada his second home and moved to Toronto.

After spending the first year doing technical support for a local ISP, Sergei has joined internal helpdesk of IBM Global Services, providing first level support for network connectivity, hardware, and applications of 20,000+ users. From there he advanced to the Enterprise Server Services unit, maintaining infrastructure of the major Canadian and US companies, such as Celestica, Scotiabank, Sun Life, and Irving Oil. Installation and support projects included multi-clustered database back end systems for financial data processing, the consolidation of 8 separate NT domains in 4 countries into a single Active Directory structure, design and implementation of a standard patch management process for 80-server Citrix Metaframe farm. Later on Sergei worked in the capacity of a security specialist, conducting audit reviews and remediations, implementing security compliance policies and participating in large-scale disaster recovery exercises.

Sergei has joined Arces Network in 2005, first as an employee, later on as a partner. He is presently carrying the title of CTO, though as everyone else in the company he has a number of different responsibilities, including client infrastructure support, datacenter installations, and business development.