Curriculum Vitae

Zach Drew

Principal, Veradale Labs · Fractional CTO

Spokane Valley, Washington

linkedin.com/in/veradalelabs

Twenty-five-plus years in technology, from a data-science and analytics foundation through cloud architecture and, now, applied AI. I build and operate infrastructure, security, and AI systems, and I serve on non-profit boards in the STEM space.

Experience

2025 – Present

Principal / Fractional CTO

Veradale Labs

  • Independent practice: fractional-CTO roles and scoped engagements for teams that need senior technical judgment without the overhead.
  • Cloud architecture and migration on AWS, IAM and multi-account governance, HPC and data pipelines, and practical AI and agent systems.
  • I set direction, draw the architecture, and stay through delivery to see it run in production.

2019 – 2025

Specialist Leader, then Specialist Master

Deloitte

  • Grew from individual contributor into a senior leader running multiple concurrent client engagements and the teams behind them.
  • Delivered defensible, repeatable cloud solutions across the supply chain and manufacturing practice, spanning a range of industries.

2018 – 2019

Senior Cloud Consultant

TecLever Solutions (operating as Veradale Labs)

  • Independent cloud consulting billed through TecLever. Veradale Labs' first active run, before going full-time at Deloitte.
  • Client AWS strategy, architecture, and workload migration.

2013 – 2018

Cloud Operations Architect (Senior)

2nd Watch

  • HPC grids from 2,000 to 20,000 cores; serverless and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CloudFormation).
  • IAM policy development, security audit controls, and account governance across a 300+ user, 20+ workload multi-account estate.
  • Cloud-native data: Redshift, Postgres, OLAP/OLTP, data warehouse and data lake patterns.

2000 – 2013

Data / BI & Network Operations

TeleCommunication Systems

  • Designed and owned the reporting data warehouse; cut a nightly job from 3 hours to 30 minutes.
  • ETL, SQL/PL-SQL across Oracle and MySQL, AWK/SED/BASH automation, Tableau dashboards. Data work before it was called data science.

Board service

Non-profit boards in STEM

I have served on astronomy and STEM non-profit boards since the mid-2000s: outreach, events, modernization, and getting young people excited about science.

Feb 2026 – Present

Spokane Astronomical Society

Board Member

  • STEM outreach and public-night programming with local schools.
  • Youth astronomy, including the Astronomical League Sky Puppies track for young observers.
  • Website and infrastructure modernization; scope-library and online-checkout overhaul.

2008 – 2016

Table Mountain Star Party

Board Member · Volunteer Coordinator, then Speakers Coordinator

  • Coordinated the volunteer corps for one of the Pacific Northwest's largest annual star parties.
  • As Speakers Coordinator, programmed and hosted the guest-speaker lineup.

2004 – 2009

Seattle Astronomical Society

Board Member

  • Where it started: club operations and public-outreach support.

Off the clock

Multi-modal maker

I have been doing CAD and graphic design since high school, and the urge to make things never left: vector art, product design, 3D printing, the occasional steel sign. It is the same instinct that runs through the technical work. If it can be designed and built, I am probably already mid-project.

Skills

Data science / analyticsAWSIAMMulti-account governance HPCTerraformCloudFormationData pipelines / CDC Redshift / PostgresAI & agent systemsCloud migration Incident forensicsTechnical leadership

Education

University of Advancing Technology

References

Available on request.