Practical IT strategy, infrastructure consulting, and workplace technology guidance — without the enterprise overhead or the consultant who disappears after the deck is delivered.
Focused engagements designed to move fast and deliver real outcomes — not 200-page reports that gather dust.
Network design, on-premise and hybrid cloud infrastructure, virtualization (Proxmox, VMware), firewall and security hardening, and disaster recovery planning for organizations that can't afford downtime.
Hybrid work tooling, collaboration platform evaluation, IT policy development, and the hard conversations about what your tech stack is actually costing you in productivity and retention.
A structured look at where your IT environment is today, where it needs to go, and a prioritized roadmap that maps to your budget — not a vendor's quota.
Need a technical voice in the room without the full-time hire? Fractional CTO/IT Director engagements for growing organizations that need senior-level guidance on a consulting basis.
Charging infrastructure planning, EV fleet integration, and technology guidance for Colorado organizations making the transition — from policy to plug.
I'm Chris Zavala — an IT professional based in Colorado with over a decade of hands-on experience across infrastructure, workplace technology, and organizational IT strategy. I've worked inside organizations ranging from lean 10-person SMBs to enterprise environments with 1,200+ employees, which means I understand both the budget constraints and the political realities.
My background is practical, not theoretical. I've built and maintained the infrastructure, argued for the tooling budget, and managed the conversation with leadership when the technology isn't working the way anyone promised it would. I write about technology and workplace dynamics at blog.chriszavala.com — the same thinking I bring to client engagements.
I take a limited number of engagements at a time so I can give each one real attention. If you need someone who will give you a straight answer and stick around to help implement it, let's talk.
Designed and deployed a full infrastructure overhaul for a small business: Proxmox hypervisor replacing aging Windows Server hardware, OPNsense at the edge with VLAN segmentation for staff, IoT, and guest traffic, plus Wasabi cloud backup replacing an unreliable tape rotation. Delivered runbooks the client could actually use without calling for help.
Conducted a full collaboration stack audit for a mid-sized hybrid organization: identified three overlapping video conferencing contracts, two redundant file storage platforms, and a shadow IT Slack workspace no one in IT knew about. Delivered a consolidation roadmap with a 14-month payback period and change management sequencing to minimize disruption.
Supported a Colorado-based fleet operator evaluating a transition from ICE to EV vehicles: built the evaluation matrix for vehicle selection, modeled charging infrastructure requirements across two facilities, assessed grid capacity with the utility, and produced a phased rollout plan that qualified for Colorado EVIE incentive funding.
Tell me what you're working on. If it's something I can help with, I'll say so. If it's not, I'll tell you that too and point you somewhere useful. No hard sell.