Michael P. Goodman
Technology Architect · AI Infrastructure Consultant · Managed IT Services Strategist · Rochester, NY
The biography, career history, companies, projects and research of Michael P. Goodman: 28+ years in IT infrastructure, 20+ years of technology business ownership, and a current focus on private, sovereign AI systems.
Michael P. Goodman in brief
Technology architect, business owner and builder of private AI systems.
Michael P. Goodman is a technology architect, AI infrastructure consultant and managed IT services strategist based in Rochester, New York. He works remote-first with clients nationwide and with local and regional organizations in New York State. His career combines 28+ years of hands-on server, Windows, Linux and network engineering, 20+ years of owning and running technology businesses, and 10+ years of web development, technical SEO and digital marketing.
His practice centers on sovereign IT and AI architecture: private, on-premises AI in which no client data, prompts or logs touch a public AI API. He designs secure local LLM deployments and private enterprise retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), automates IT infrastructure with read-only-first, human-approved change control, and advises organizations as a Fractional CTO. The work is aimed at law firms, healthcare organizations and financial institutions that want modern AI without handing privileged, protected or nonpublic data to a third party.
Before building that practice, Michael P. Goodman was president of Computer Service Specialists of New York from 2014 to 2024, president of Computer Service Specialists of Missouri from 2008 to 2012, and president and CEO of Infco Systems, Inc. from 2000 to 2002. He is the founder and principal architect of Project S.P.H.E.R.E., an open research initiative, and the owner and founder of Fields Of Green, a lawn care and property services business in Rochester.
- Full name
- Michael P. Goodman
- Based in
- Rochester, New York, USA (remote-first, serving clients nationwide)
- Professional titles
- Technology Architect; AI Infrastructure Consultant; Managed IT Services Strategist
- Practice areas
- Sovereign IT & AI architecture, secure local LLM deployment, private enterprise RAG, IT infrastructure automation, Fractional CTO advisory, infrastructure diagnosis and recovery
- Founded or owns
- Project S.P.H.E.R.E. (SPHERE Research, LLC); Fields Of Green
- Former leadership
- President, Computer Service Specialists of New York (2014–2024); President, Computer Service Specialists of Missouri (2008–2012); President & CEO, Infco Systems, Inc. (2000–2002)
- Credentials
- MCSE+I (legacy), ITIL Foundation (legacy), CompTIA Network+, CompTIA A+, CCIM
- Official website
- michaelpgoodman.com
Career history of Michael P. Goodman
From junior systems administrator in 1998 to owner-operator of technology companies in Missouri and New York, and now to private AI infrastructure.
Early ventures, 1997 and 2000
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1997
First entrepreneurial venture selling Unix shell accounts
A teenage hosting venture with his brother that never won a paying customer. Read Michael P. Goodman’s early entrepreneurial lessons.
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2000
Founded Infco Systems, Inc.
Launched in March 2000 during the dot-com boom. Read how Michael P. Goodman started in business.
Early career and first executive role, 1998–2005
Michael P. Goodman began his IT career in 1998 as a junior systems administrator at MMI Technologies. From 2000 to 2002 he was president and CEO of Infco Systems, Inc. He then worked as an onsite IT specialist at Computer Outlet Company in Cicero, New York (2002–2003) and as IT manager at Michelson Realty Company in St. Louis, Missouri (2004–2005). His record at Michelson also includes commercial real estate acquisitions work, and he holds the CCIM designation. He has served as a systems administrator at John Henry Foster Company in St. Louis as well.
The technical ground covered in these roles is server hardware, storage and RAID, Windows Server, Active Directory, Group Policy and virtual servers: the layers that every later project depended on.
Missouri technology businesses, 2008–2012 and earlier
From 2008 to 2012 he was president of Computer Service Specialists of Missouri. His Missouri record also includes serving as vice president of operations at Technology Service Solutions in Creve Coeur, owning BizBackup Worldwide Services in St. Louis, and leading CSS Technologies and M & J Goodman Enterprises. This site does not publish dates for those roles. Together they added responsibility for service operations, consulting, backup and business continuity, and the daily running of a technology company.
Computer Service Specialists of New York, 2014–2024
In Rochester, Michael P. Goodman was president of Computer Service Specialists of New York for a decade. The company delivered Managed IT Services, server and network installation, business IT support, data recovery and technology advisory, and it grew to include websites, domains and DNS, email systems, technical SEO and digital marketing for small businesses. As president he carried both the engineering and the ownership responsibilities of the business.
Sovereign AI and open research, present
His current work applies the same infrastructure discipline to private AI. He consults through michaelpgoodman.com on sovereign IT and AI architecture, founded and architects Project S.P.H.E.R.E., and owns Fields Of Green. The through-line is practical: understand the whole system, from hardware to application to business consequence, before changing any part of it.
| Role | Organization | Location | Years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jr. Systems Administrator | MMI Technologies | — | 1998–1999 |
| President & CEO | Infco Systems, Inc. | — | 2000–2002 |
| Onsite IT Specialist | Computer Outlet Company | Cicero, NY | 2002–2003 |
| IT Manager | Michelson Realty Company | St. Louis, MO | 2004–2005 |
| President | Computer Service Specialists of Missouri | Missouri | 2008–2012 |
| President | Computer Service Specialists of New York | Rochester, NY | 2014–2024 |
| Commercial real estate acquisitions | Michelson Realty Company | St. Louis, MO | — |
| Systems Administrator | John Henry Foster Company | St. Louis, MO | — |
| VP of Operations | Technology Service Solutions (TSS Missouri) | Creve Coeur, MO | — |
| Principal Owner | BizBackup Worldwide Services | St. Louis, MO | — |
| Founder & Principal Architect | Project S.P.H.E.R.E. (SPHERE Research, LLC) | — | Current |
| Owner & Founder | Fields Of Green | Rochester, NY | Current |
Companies and ventures led by Michael P. Goodman
Michael P. Goodman has led or owned technology businesses for more than 20+ years. These are the organizations in his record.
Computer Service Specialists of New York (CSSNY)
A Rochester, New York technology services company where he was president from 2014 to 2024. It provided Managed IT Services, server and network installation, business IT support, data recovery and technology advisory to businesses in the Rochester market.
Computer Service Specialists of Missouri
A Missouri technology services company. Michael P. Goodman was its president from 2008 to 2012.
Infco Systems, Inc.
He served as president and CEO of Infco Systems, Inc. from 2000 to 2002, the earliest dated executive role in his record. Read the story of Infco Systems and my first businesses.
Technology Service Solutions (TSS Missouri)
A Creve Coeur, Missouri company, also referred to as TSS Missouri, where he was vice president of operations.
BizBackup Worldwide Services
A St. Louis company where he was principal owner. The work centered on backup and business continuity, covering many of the same tasks that managed services later made routine.
CSS Technologies and M & J Goodman Enterprises
Two earlier ventures: CSS Technologies, focused on infrastructure and consulting work, and M & J Goodman Enterprises, focused on business operations and management.
Fields Of Green
The lawn care and property services business he founded and owns in Rochester, New York, at fieldsofgreenrochester.com. He also built its custom Property Quote Engine, described under projects below.
SPHERE Research, LLC (Project S.P.H.E.R.E.)
The entity behind Project S.P.H.E.R.E., an open-research DeSci metrology initiative at spheredesci.org. Michael P. Goodman is its founder and principal architect.
What Michael P. Goodman builds and fixes
Servers, networks, virtualization and AI are treated as one connected system, not separate fields.
Windows Server, Active Directory and networking
Group Policy audits, Active Directory hygiene and identity lifecycle, DNS and DHCP, TCP/IP, routing and switching, and packet-level diagnostics. Knowing the hardware, operating system, network and application at a working level makes it possible to find a fault at the layer where it lives, which is often not the layer where it appears.
Virtualization, storage and bare-metal recovery
Server virtualization, RAID and storage design, backup verification, bare-metal recovery and disaster recovery planning. His article on moving off VMware with Hyper-V or Proxmox lays out a migration sequence that keeps rollback available.
Sovereign AI: local LLMs and private RAG
Private AI on infrastructure the client controls. That means GPU sizing, Ubuntu GPU nodes, Ollama-based local inference, network isolation, role-based access control, audit logging, backup and recovery, and runbooks, with LlamaIndex, Qdrant and FastAPI providing source-cited answers inside the data boundary. See the guides to secure local LLM deployment and private RAG for regulated industries, or the services overview.
Automation and Fractional CTO advisory
PowerShell, Python, REST APIs and local AI applied to Windows Server health, patching and backup verification, Active Directory hygiene, helpdesk triage and co-managed IT escalation. The rules are fixed: read-only first, human approval before every production change, least-privilege service accounts, audit trails and tested rollback. The same judgment is offered as a Fractional CTO; the article on choosing an AI transformation advisor or a Fractional CTO explains the difference, and the IT infrastructure automation page details the work.
Selected projects by Michael P. Goodman
Each project page documents the architecture, the technology and what the work demonstrates. See the full project portfolio.
Project S.P.H.E.R.E.
An open, reproducible metrology research initiative with documented protocols and budgets. It is exploratory and at the proposal stage.
SPHERE Virtual Lab
A browser-based 3D simulator of the measurement laboratory that Project S.P.H.E.R.E. proposes, live at lab.spheredesci.org. It is an educational simulation, and its release notes update automatically from the source repository on GitHub.
Sovereign local AI reference build
A private retrieval pipeline using React, FastAPI, LlamaIndex, Qdrant and Ollama on Ubuntu GPU nodes, with no public AI API in the data path. It is an internal reference build, not a client engagement.
Fields Of Green Property Quote Engine
A custom FastAPI and SQLite application that turns an address into a server-calculated quote. It geocodes with the US Census Bureau geocoder and shows “Not available” instead of inventing data.
OpenBCI data pipeline
Exploratory research and development pairing OpenBCI hardware with Python and a ChromaDB vector store to capture, organize and search EEG data on hardware he controls.
AI migration and Enterprise Microsoft 365
Two documented approaches: moving workloads from public AI APIs to private local infrastructure, and identity and Microsoft 365 modernization that cleans the directory first. These are a service pattern and a capability profile, not published client engagements.
Research work: open, reproducible and clearly bounded
Exploratory research is presented as exploratory.
Michael P. Goodman founded Project S.P.H.E.R.E. as an open-research DeSci metrology initiative. It follows one rule: every claim must be reproducible by someone else. Protocols and budgets are documented in public, the Virtual Lab lets reviewers rehearse the measurement procedure before any hardware exists, and the source code and change history are open.
Project S.P.H.E.R.E. is exploratory and at the proposal stage. It is not institutionally endorsed, and nothing on this site is a scientific result or a validation of the underlying hypothesis. The Virtual Lab does not connect to or read any physical equipment, so its modeled results are not evidence for or against that hypothesis.
His second research thread is brain-computer interface data engineering. The OpenBCI pipeline is an exploratory engineering project that builds the plumbing first: acquisition, cleaning, windowing, embedding and search. It is not a medical device and makes no diagnostic or therapeutic claims.
The research also feeds his client work. The private AI stack behind Project S.P.H.E.R.E. tooling is documented in the reference architecture case study, and the same patterns are adapted for regulated organizations.
Certifications and credentials
Five verified credentials, with legacy ones labeled as legacy.
- MCSE+I (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer + Internet): a legacy credential from the Windows NT era.
- ITIL Foundation: a legacy IT service management credential.
- CompTIA Network+: networking fundamentals.
- CompTIA A+: hardware and systems support fundamentals.
- CCIM (Certified Commercial Investment Member): a commercial real estate designation.
The legacy credentials show where the foundation was laid. His current-technology work is demonstrated by the project record above, not by certificates.
How Michael P. Goodman works
Clients work directly with Michael, not a rotating junior team.
- Discover. Inventory systems, data flows and constraints in read-only mode.
- Diagnose. Audit and measure before changing anything: packet captures, Group Policy audits, log review.
- Architect. Design the data boundary, access model and rollback path.
- Build. Implement in stages, with a documented way back at each one.
- Harden & Transfer. Lock down, document and hand over to the client’s team.
Local AI removes third-party cloud API exposure and can simplify a compliance posture for HIPAA, GLBA and attorney-client privilege. It is not legal advice and not a certification.
The hands-on side of the work
Official profiles of Michael P. Goodman
This page is the canonical biography of Michael P. Goodman of Rochester, New York, founder of Project S.P.H.E.R.E. and owner of Fields Of Green. These are his official profiles.
Related pages: About, Services, Case Study, Blog, Media Kit.
Frequently asked questions about Michael P. Goodman
Who is Michael P. Goodman?
Michael P. Goodman is a Rochester, New York technology architect, AI infrastructure consultant and managed IT services strategist with 28+ years of IT infrastructure experience and 20+ years of technology business ownership.
Where is Michael P. Goodman based?
He is based in Rochester, New York. He works remote-first with clients nationwide and works with local and regional organizations in New York State.
What does Michael P. Goodman do today?
He designs sovereign IT and AI architecture: secure local LLM deployments, private enterprise RAG, IT infrastructure automation and Fractional CTO advisory for organizations that cannot send data to public AI APIs.
What certifications does Michael P. Goodman hold?
MCSE+I, ITIL Foundation, CompTIA Network+, CompTIA A+ and CCIM. MCSE+I and ITIL are legacy credentials, and CCIM is a commercial real estate designation.
Which companies has Michael P. Goodman led?
He was president of Computer Service Specialists of New York (2014–2024), president of Computer Service Specialists of Missouri (2008–2012) and president and CEO of Infco Systems, Inc. (2000–2002). He owns Fields Of Green and founded Project S.P.H.E.R.E.
Is Project S.P.H.E.R.E. institutionally endorsed research?
No. Project S.P.H.E.R.E. is exploratory, open and reproducible research at the proposal stage. It is not institutionally endorsed, and nothing published about it is a scientific result.