About Me

Who is Aaron Gutleben?

Well, I'll leave my personal life out of these pages for the most part, however I am happy to share some of my professional interests and career choices. Since FileMaker is my professional love, you will of course sense a focus on that topic.

ADG Consulting was my consulting company and my first leap into a life in the technology sector. It represented a turning point where I transitioned a hobby into a career. This was an important decision as my wife and I were expecting our first child. While ADG Consulting was in business, I handled a large number of tasks. Most centered around technical support. Things such as computer repair, network installs and general maintenance were usually a part of the picture.

Much later (about a year before I closed my doors) I was mostly doing FileMaker development, along with some web design. While I loved ADG Consulting, it never was a primary source of income. and since I was now responsible for a family, more steady work was needed.

In 2001, I accepted a job as IT Manager at a large non-profit in Sebastopol. It was during this time that I was first introduced to FileMaker. We had a database running on a Mac OS8 computer built by Double Helix and the company had no plans on porting the database application to OSX. So, we needed an alternative. The ED approached me and mentioned a product called FileMaker. He asked me to take a few classes at the local college and see if it had any potential. Well, that was all it took.

In 2003, I was hired by the FileMaker instructors company to assist in developing databases. I also took over the interface design of most of our custom solutions.

After four years in a part-time developer roll, a full-time IT Manager roll and running a consulting company, I decided I wanted to develop in FileMaker full time. So, I applied to and was hired by Soliant Consulting. I've done nothing but FileMaker since and have never looked back.

I have acheived certification in FileMaker 8 and 9 and I highly recommend getting certified if you are at all serious about development. The FTS training and study materials offered through FileMaker are a great resource and are setup so you can learn at your own pace. Plus, I guarrantee that you will be a better developer at the end of the process than you were at the beginning.