Meet Michael Orr.  Michael is the CEO and overseer of everything here at Cloudspace.  He is one of our top engineers and has recently joined efforts with our Agile Development team.  Outside of work, he is big into comic books (Comic Book Wednesdays!), animals, Nine Inch Nails and traveling. Michael brings his excitement of the internet to the team and is a great person to work with as you will read below...

Where were you born? Where did you grow up & what was it like there?

"I was born in Owensboro, Kentucky and I moved around a lot. After Kentucky I lived in Knoxville, TN; Jacksonville, FL;  Lawrenceville, GA; Lake City, FL; Waycross, GA; Atlanta, GA; Palm City, FL; Orlando, FL.  I've lived in Orlando now longer than any of the other places, I came to Orlando in August 2000."

What types of activities did you enjoy as a kid?

"I played a lot of baseball as a kid, little league until I was about 15.  I also really liked to go camping and play whatever sport the kids in the neighborhood were semi-organizing.  Lots of kickball. "

Did you go to College, if so, Where? And how far did you go?

"I went to Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, GA for a year and half, thinking I'd get a Liberal Arts education.  Then I decided I wanted to do more with computers and transferred to the University of Central Florida and ended up getting a Bachelor of Science in Liberal Studies.  My degree was a mix of computer science classes and creative writing and literary analysis  classes. I thought about grad school for a bit right before I graduated but then I got a job at Cloudspace and haven't even considered the idea of going back.  I'm having too much fun."

What was your first job?

"I worked at a museum in Waycross, GA called Southern Forest World.  It was a pretty small museum that was funded by the forestry industry proclaiming all the good things that were done with the trees that they cut down.  It was a self guided tour, which meant I just collected money for entrance and people walked around on their own.  The tour started with a talking tree that welcomed you to the museum.  I often ran the place alone on the weekends.  We were also a place that you could come to do your community service hours for DUI and other minor offenses, except for this one time when it was arson.  They could work off the hours by raking the grounds or sweeping the museum."

What got you into computers?

"First there was The Oregon Trail and Logo on the computers at school.  Then I did some programming in BASIC with a neighbor around age 11. "

What was one of the first online projects you worked on?

"I worked for UCF helping teachers to create online courses in WebCT and posting documents online."

What attracted you to working for Cloudspace?

"I was always more attracted to web development over other types of programming because its such a constantly shifting and evolving world.  There was always this wonderful blend of art and science to the way all of these different technologies come together to make such an amazing and open platform for communication and I wanted to be a part of it.   As a small business Cloudspace would offer me the opportunity to get involved in all aspects of web development and that has worked out to be an even wider range of experiences than I had ever thought it would be."

What do you do for fun?

"Take my dogs on adventures, read  fiction comics (mostly DC), lots of stuff on the internet, watch movies"

Do you have any pets?

"Three.  My wife and I have one cat (Schizo) and two dogs (Greta and Angel).  We didn't get to name any of our pets ourselves."

What is the last book you read?

"Forget the last book I read, here are some of my favorite books:

Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood
Continental Drift - Russell Banks
The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
Microserfs - Douglas Coupland
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut
The Chronoliths - Robert Charles Wilson
A Deepness in the Sky - Vernor Vinge"

What was the last movie you went to see? What is your favorite movie?

"Underworld Evolution or The Wrestler, both were pretty good."

If you were car what kind of car would you be? Why?

"A convertible because convertibles completely rule."

What is the best trip you've ever taken?

"Anna and I went to France and Italy for our honeymoon for two weeks.  It was amazing.  Quick funny story: We both took French in high school and college and the first time we walked into a cafe and ordered in French, we were replied to in English. "

Have you traveled out of the country? if so, where to?

"I've been to Toronto, Canada once and also stopped in Mexico and a few islands in the Bahamas on a cruise.  I've also taken three trips to Europe with my wife Anna.  We visited France, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands, Austria, Czech Republic, and Hungary."

If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?

"You think I'm going to say Batman, but actually I'll take the power of Green Lantern's ring because its a weapon that runs on imagination and willpower."

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

"I recently got to shadow a zoo keeper at the Central Florida Zoo for a day and that was tons of fun so I'd probably pick that, though I can't imagine anything that could happen to prevent me from doing my current job where I'd still be able to work at the zoo."

What are your all-time favorite CDs?

"Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
Tori Amos - Under the Pink
Jucifer - If Thine Enemy Hunger
Nirvana - Nevermind
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones"

Networks Michael belongs to:

"I'm on Facebook but I never log in and check it, same thing for LinkedIn. I'm not on Myspace at all.  I use Twitter just about everyday: @imbiat"

Thanks for taking the time to interview with me Michael!

We're halfway there to meeting all of the Cloudspace team. Next week I introduce you to our youngest engineer, Jacob Hemphill.