Richard Jones

Chief Technology Officer at Aquia

Programming since age 10, Richard has a long and storied history in IT stretching back to the days of bulletin board systems — well before internet access was mainstream. Richard's IT career began in the mid 1990s after joining the U.S. Army where he worked as a network switching systems technician. After finishing a degree in Digital Media, he has since worked in a variety of IT fields including PC repair and web design, as well as frontend, backend, and systems development. Since 2009, Richard has specialized in cloud solutions architecture and cloud engineering, helping organizations migrate to the cloud and build well-architected cloud-native applications.

Richard holds seven AWS certifications and, as an instructor, has helped thousands of individuals prepare for certifications of their own. Richard has taught at community colleges, private institutions, and a graduate program at the University of Colorado. For a time, he was an authorized AWS instructor, delivering official AWS training to Fortune 500 companies all over the world. 

Richard brings this background in training to his role as CTO at Aquia. Passionate about continuous learning and development, he also plays a key role in curriculum development for the Aquia Accelerator apprenticeship program, where he helps apprentices with no cloud or cybersecurity experience to become certified solutions architects over a 6-month program.

When not leading technology efforts, you can find Richard spending time with his two children exploring and photographing the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.