References and Comments

If you may be interested in hearing what others have thought of Charlie's services, here are comments from consulting clients, colleagues, students in training classes, and attendees at presentations.

If you may prefer to speak with a client to obtain direct references, contacts are available upon request.

Clients

  • Bryan Evans
    Orbit Irrigation Products Inc.
    "Thanks for your time. Our folks are very impressed with your knowledge and how great you've been to work with. You'll always be the first person we call if we ever run into a problem."
  • Tim Cunningham
    VP Operations, IDMI Systems
    "Once again @carehart proves to be my special Devops super hero. If you need server troubleshooting, help he is your man! #ColdFusion #IIS" (written via twitter, reposted and attributed here with his permission)
  • Jeff Meister
    Ignite Solutions
    "The time we spent together was valuable. I refactored a troublesome scheduled task and the server has been running for 34 days straight now."
  • Bill Brock
    Founder, Technology Projects
    "It's been great having you available and I really appreciate the level of understanding that you bring with your assistance. We've learned a lot and it's made ongoing troubleshooting more effective on our part."
  • Nicolas Glinoer
    Walking men, a digital agency
    "Our server is doing much better - and your help getting us started with FusionReactor was extremely invaluable - thanks again! While we didn't find any one silver bullet that was bringing the server to its knees, in the process of looking into things based on what we learned, we ended up optimizing a lot of things (code, configuration, caching, etc.). Being able more readily see the impact of spiders on things was also really helpful. Our situation is significantly better now. We could not have done it without the insight you gave us into the trove of data provided by FusionReactor. We won't hesitate to get in touch again for our future CF-server needs - it was a pleasure to collaborate with you."
  • Garrett Christian
    CTO, Terra Dotta, LLC
    When we first approached Charlie with a critical issue affecting our production systems, I certainly expected good results, based on his reputation and extensive writings and contributions to the ColdFusion user community. Indeed he did get us through the vexing issues (due ultimately to configuration settings) and got us on our feet again, but what came as a surprise was the wealth of knowledge that Charlie provided in wide ranging areas of system management and troubleshooting. He pointed us to tools and techniques, shortcuts, and undocumented nuggets of information that we continue to find useful and which have made our engineering and support teams stronger and more able to tackle adverse events.

    It's Charlie's patient, methodical attention not just to problems, but to the education needs of his clients, that makes his consultation service unique. He's a gifted communicator and teacher. He starts without preconceptions or assumptions and builds his investigation by observing key diagnostics, all the while carefully questioning and listening, picking out details that reveal the need to give the client more insight to have a foundational understanding of the areas involved.

    Charlie's always reasonable, forthright, and honest with his billings. We're glad to have him as a resource when needed, and we will certainly continue to rely on him going forward.
  • Kevin Hamada
    Director, Systems Technology (for a Fortune 100 company)
    I've worked with Charlie for about six years, but have known of his excellent reputation in the ColdFusion world for about ten. Charlie has been a very valuable resource for my group. Working with Charlie is an absolute pleasure. His outstanding communication skills enable him to teach people unfamiliar with the software, as well as explaining technical details to experts in the field.

    I work for a large Fortune 100 company. My group is responsible for the company's internal web site, which has over 35,000 users and gets close to 2,000,000 hits/day. Charlie has helped with examining and quantifying performance for ColdFusion. He explained the different components and how to measure, examine and understand the feedback from these components. Not only did Charlie find and resolve our bottleneck issue, but he also helped establish a preventative maintenance plan. The results of his interactions enabled us to move from having performance bottlenecks on our web servers every hour to servers that are now running smoothly.
  • Byron Shank
    Home Reserve, LLC
    We were having some trouble with one of our applications eating up memory so I searched Google for 'coldfusion consultant'. I clicked on Charlie's website www.carehart.org and instantly recognized his picture from a number of postings that I had read on Adobe's DevNet page. (Here is an example.)

    I sent him an e-mail with a general description of the issue I was having, he responded very promptly.

    Working with Charlie has been a joy. He helped me quickly identify loose ends in the server configuration as well as areas in code. The best thing about the experience is that rather than just peek at code and server configurations and then make changes, Charlie walked through both with me over the phone and online. The whole process became a learning experience with my own personal instructor looking over my shoulder.

    I feel smart for having chosen Charlie as go-to resource.
  • Karin Stevenson, PowerWeb Development Manager
    CyberWolf, Inc.
    We started working with Charlie Arehart in February of 2007 when looking for help with some of ColdFusion's more challenging aspects which had suddenly started to affect our operational stability.

    Charlie was extraordinarily helpful, not only by working side by side with our IT staff, analyzing even the (to us) most obscure bits and pieces of the ColdFusion setup and configuration on the servers, as needed, but also by pointing us to many tools that have proven invaluable to us since then (from general load testing tools to log analyzers and ColdFusion monitoring).

    Thanks to Charlie we were able to understand and remedy issues on multiple levels within short time. His great ability to teach while solving problems makes him an extremely valuable partner to have.

    Even today, with a lot more experience under my belt, I consider Charlie my "CF Guardian Angel" and never hesitate to consult him when I have a problem. And I never walk away from a discussion with Charlie without having learned something valuable.
  • George Chynoweth
    A US Military Agency
    Charlie is personable, with a ready sense of humor. His technical skills are superb: he can see the big picture and develop all the intricate details to bring it all together into a functioning system. His training skills are very strong: He not only explains and teaches well, he challenges one to think. He handled our heterogenous group with amazing grace (and patience). The entire office was delighted with Charlie's efforts.

    I have worked with several world class consultants in this arena, and while all were exceptional, I give Charlie my highest recommendation. I intend to use his services again when I have need.
  • Paul Thompson
    Lincoln Investments
    "You were a big help to us and still are. Our ColdFusion programmers are always using your website as a resource."
  • Robert Reil, President
    Motorcyclecarbs.com
    "Thanks for all your help. The server has acted flawlessly since we worked together. I'm so glad you were there with that service. Couldn't have done it without you, was a pleasure, and I always tell CF users about you."
  • Ken Smith, Director, Technology Solutions
    AssettNation.com
    "We contacted Charlie because our server was performing poorly. In helping us analyze diagnostics and logs, he demonstrated pretty quickly that the problem was not in fact CF, but Apache. That helped take the pressure off our consideration of our app or the server (or CF) being the problem. While we investigated Apache, Charlie suggested we might consider IIS instead, noting that IIS 7 was quite an improvement. Though we had some Apache experts identify some needed changes (for our Windows 2008 R2 setup), we ultimately tried and like IIS 7, and our site is screaming. So, thanks, Charlie, for everything: keeping us from second guessing our application, and turning us on to IIS 7, so we have the super fast site we'd been missing.
  • Charles Garber
    Clark Associates
    "You were a life saver! Really, the server is performing better than when we purchased it. We hit a record today with # of simultaneous users and stand to do well in sales."
  • Barbara S. ONeal, President/Co-Founder
    Centric Web, Inc.
    I was very pleased and impressed by Charlie's professionalism and knowledge, not only with FusionReactor and ColdFusion but with other simple short cuts as well. It isn't often that when you pay for the extra support you actually get someone who really knows his stuff and is willing to really work through the details with you.

Students

The following comments relate to various training Charlie has offered, whether Adobe training in ColdFusion he's offered in many venues since 1999, or in the FusionReactor Training that Charlie wrote and teaches for Intergral, or in other training sessions Charlie has developed.
  • "Charlie has a very clear and concise presentation style and I felt very enthused about the topic afterwards. I'll certainly be looking at doing the advanced class soon. ", Will Swain, Technical Director, Hot Horse Ltd
  • "I really enjoyed the webinar! Charlie totally got me pumped about FusionReactor. I am ready to start investigating our web server indepth!", Robin Sexton, Senior Web Developer, The Marco Corporation
  • "Charlie has a very clear and concise presentation style and I felt very enthused about the topic afterwards. I'll certainly be looking at doing the advanced class soon.", Will Swain, Technical Director, Hot Horse Ltd
  • ""The presenter skillfully tailored the course to the participants and added good value.", Leslie Connor, Project Manager, Fisheries and Oceans Canada
  • "Thanks for the presentation today, I thought it was excellent! I think that people should be flocking to this - it's obvious to me that many users are just scratching the surface of what FusionReactor can do for them.", Nick Gleason, CitySoft, Inc.
  • "The presenter had a deep understanding of FusionReactor and did an excellent job in presenting. He tailored the presentation to answer my questions and demonstrated how to troubleshoot a real issue using the tools. The training will really help me apply FusionReactor and do more with our site!", Christina Legris, Business and Internet Systems Manager, State Bar of Wisconsin
  • "I still cannot believe how much I learn in such little time. I have only met one other instructor that had this style, and I found that it works well with my brain.", One Day Seminar attendee
  • "Charlie is unique in that he gives outstanding individual attention to each student at all levels. Insures that we understand the material fully before moving forward. A great teacher who shows an honest interest that each of us benefit from his instruction.", Anonymous
  • "This was the BEST training and instructor I have ever had!", Anonymous
  • "Excellent intructor. Took time to answer all questions. Brought in a huge amount of knowledge and examples.", Anonymous
  • "It was truly some of the best instruction I have ever had anywhere.", Anonymous
  • "Couldn't say enough good things about him", Anonymous
  • "The instructor was excellent! I was very impressed. He demonstrated a great knowledge of the subject and was able to communicate very well to the class (no matter our level of understanding, experience, or age).", Anonymous
  • "Best instructor", Anonymous
  • "Extremely knowledgeable and patient. Able to work with students of differing knowledge levels. Real world usage of the product over diverse platforms", Anonymous
  • "Charlie is an outstanding instructor", Anonymous
  • "I've been to many short (3 day) training classes in my days. I think Charlie Arehart is one of (if not) the best teacher. He answers all questions and verbally (or via example) makes the solution easy to understand.", Paul Franco
  • "Overall the instructor was extremely knowledable in the course and more importantly the application/use helpful tips, etc. His expertise was clearly exhibited though demonstrations and examples.", Renee Mcclure
  • "Good instructor, comfortable style, easy to work with.", David Sobel
  • "Instructor was excellent and had good teaching skills and rapport with students in addition to CF expertise!", Terri Phifer
  • "Charlie is a GREAT instructor. Not only instructs but listens, watches and helps. You got a winner here....", Tom Cropper
  • "Good instructor, speaks well and keeps you interested.", Steve Shibe
  • "Charlie was both knowledgeable and good at explaining his knowledge at varying levels of complexity depending on the needs of the class at the moment.", Kevin Broun
  • "Charlie Arehart was very knowledable, and made the course interesting and entertaining. He answered all of our questions and provided much additional insight.", Mike Cranford
  • "Charlie Arehart was very knowledgable, courteous, and proactive in assisting students, particulary with the labs. Class began and resumed from breaks prompty. Appreciated information on additional topics he provided on his own initiative.", Hal McCoig
  • "Charlie was very knowlegeable about the course content and was very patient with and very willing to help any individuals who did not have much HTML experience.", Sandra Henderson

Colleagues

  • "Charlie Arehart is like the master of information organization. Between the User Group TV collection, Object Oriented Programming round-ups, and documents like this one, Charlie seems to have a super power for rounding up all the useful information on a given topic or area of interest and packaging it neatly for our benefit.", in a blog entry by Ben Nadel
  • "I have known Charlie for more than a dozen years. I have found him to be detail oriented and methodical in his approach to creating solutions to complex multi-faceted challenges. His ability to communicate without the use of technical jargon made working with him an exciting opportunity to learn from one leading experts in his field.", Michaela Conley, CEO, Founder, HPCareer.Net, LLC (reference as offered on LinkedIn)
  • "You have such a nice way of making things simple", Hal Helms, Renowned ColdFusion Expert and Author
  • "Thanks for the massive volume of wisdom you continuously pour into the community via your articles and involvment in the various community lists. you know you're always welcome to come see us again anytime in AZ!", Sean Tierney in a comment on a blog entry
  • "Charlie is one of the most dedicated individuals (if not the most) I have ever had the opportunity to work with. His contributions to the community are second to none and his ability to work with people of all levels is phenomenal. If you want a project to be done correctly and require all angles to be covered then look no further. A true pleasure to do work with!", Ron West, Director, Product Strategy and Professional Services, PaperThin, Inc. (reference as offered on LinkedIn)
  • "Charlie is a highly reliable and technically skilled individual who doesn't like to leave problems unsolved. He has a reputation for caring about associates' issues, rather than just lending a hand out of obligation.", Jeff Peters, Owner, Proton Arts (reference as offered on LinkedIn)
  • "Folks, this is the holy grail of "does anybody know of a tool that can do...." if it exists, it's on this list. not only was i suprised by how all-encompassing this list was, but it's also remarkably up-to-date. it's one thing to put forth the effort to compile such a list. it's another to put forth the effort that it must take to maintain it and keep it useful. Twice in the past two weeks i've been duly impressed by two of the many resources that charlie manages. i figure that if nothing else, that deserves a public "thank you" at the very least. so, thanks charlie. i'm sure i speak for quite a few people when i say that all of your efforts on behalf of the community are appreciated.", Charlie Griefer in a blog entry discussing Charlie's CF Tools/Resources to Consider list.
  • "[Charlie] goes out of his way to ensure every angle has been explored and that information is presented as clearly as possible so that as large an audience as possible can benefit from the information. He's a tremendous asset to the community, has produced countless excellent presentations and articles and columns and he works very hard to provide much needed, approachable information for people new to ColdFusion.", Sean Corfield, in comments on a blog entry
  • "Thanks...to one of the true leaders of our community. I can still remember reading some of his first articles in cfdj, and I was really impressed, because to me, I wanted to learn more, do more, and be as efficient as possible. To me, he seemed [to ask], "how can I help people from any level of experience in cfml, program faster, easier and more efficiently?" From his tips about CF Studio and Homesite, to his different articles on developing. I mean we all knew synax of Cf, but putting it together in a professional and efficient manner isn't something that we had the ability to take classes on. So in bits and pieces, he is the guy that gave you that extra depth, made things faster for you to develop. Gave you some undocumented features and knowledge of how CFML works. I think that it is because of cf writers and programmers like Charlie Arehart [that] I wanted to blog and become a writer. Remember your committment to the cf community: is not just about how many articles or books; it's about your passionate committment to the craft of programming in cfml. Thank you Charlie", in a blog entry by Craig Rosenblum
  • "I've been around the CF community since ver 1.5 and I always had great respect for you. The CF community is special because of people like you. We're all grateful you have been, and will continue to be, a part of it.", Tom Nunamaker in a comment on a blog entry
  • "I worked with Charlie for a few months while he was CTO at New Atlanta. You'll be hard pressed to find another guy with more knowledge of CF and other web technologies, and a higher standard of morals and professionalism. He is fantastic to work with and has tons of knowledge he doesn't mind sharing.", Allen Underwood, Consultant, UPS (reference as offered on LinkedIn)
  • "I worked with Charlie for over 3 years and found him to be one of the nicest, smartest and most patient people I have ever met. His knowledge of CFML is second to none and his overall IT knowledge is amazing and ever expanding. Finally, he is a wonderful teacher!", Brian O'Reilly, VP - Sales, New Atlanta (reference as offered on LinkedIn)

Conference/User Group Presentation Attendees

Following are just a few comments from Charlie's various presentations to hundreds of conference and user group sessions related to CF since 1998.
  • "Charlie Arehart is a really polished speaker. I'm not knocking anyone else, but he's just really smooth.", Terry Ryan in a blog post referring to a CF.objective presentation
  • "Anytime Charlie comes, give him 2 hours!""
  • "Very well done! Good information clearly presented."
  • "Fantastic. Presenter was very knowledgeable. Great overview - a bit fast presenting though!."
  • "Great speaker! fast, informative held attention well."
  • "Managed to increase speed without losing quality (started late [due to earlier session running long])."
  • "Charlie presents the material in a manner appropriate for all levels of experience."
  • "Charlie is an excellent speaker. great presentation."
  • "Charlie Arehart is always a good speaker no matter what he speaks on."

Share your feedback

If you would like to share a comment for Charlie to post here, please feel free to contact him, and thanks!




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